Mediterranean diet and risk for Alzheimer's disease

TLDR

Previous research has focused on individual dietary components, but evidence suggests composite patterns such as the Mediterranean diet are linked to lower cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mortality risk. The study aimed to examine whether adherence to the Mediterranean diet is associated with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease. In a prospective cohort of 2,258 nondemented New Yorkers followed every 1.5 years, Mediterranean diet adherence was scored on a 0–9 scale and used as the main predictor in multivariable models adjusted for demographic, genetic, lifestyle, and health factors, with 262 incident AD cases observed over approximately four years. Higher Mediterranean diet adherence was linked to a lower Alzheimer’s disease risk, with hazard ratios of 0.91 overall and 0.60 for the highest tertile versus the lowest (p for trend = 0.007).

Abstract

Previous research in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has focused on individual dietary components. There is converging evidence that composite dietary patterns such as the Mediterranean diet (MeDi) is related to lower risk for cardiovascular disease, several forms of cancer, and overall mortality. We sought to investigate the association between MeDi and risk for AD.A total of 2,258 community-based nondemented individuals in New York were prospectively evaluated every 1.5 years. Adherence to the MeDi (zero- to nine-point scale with higher scores indicating higher adherence) was the main predictor in models that were adjusted for cohort, age, sex, ethnicity, education, apolipoprotein E genotype, caloric intake, smoking, medical comorbidity index, and body mass index.There were 262 incident AD cases during the course of 4 (+/-3.0; range, 0.2-13.9) years of follow-up. Higher adherence to the MeDi was associated with lower risk for AD (hazard ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.83-0.98; p=0.015). Compared with subjects in the lowest MeDi tertile, subjects in the middle MeDi tertile had a hazard ratio of 0.85 (95% confidence interval, 0.63-1.16) and those at the highest tertile had a hazard ratio of 0.60 (95% confidence interval, 0.42-0.87) for AD (p for trend=0.007).We conclude that higher adherence to the MeDi is associated with a reduction in risk for AD.