Initial findings from a new study conducted by
researchers at the
Columbia University Medical Center,
New York, show that following a
Mediterranean-style diet
might play a part in reducing risk for Alzheimer's
disease. The research was led by Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas,
assistant professor of neurology, Columbia University,
New York, and funded in part by the National Institute
on Aging, one of the National Institutes of Health. The
results of the study were published online in the
Annals of Neurology online on April 18.
Previous research has shown that the
Mediterranean
diet might help reduce the risk of heart disease.
However, those studies tended to focus on individual
foods or nutrients, like fish or vitamin C, notes Scarmeas. He explains that by studying a comprehensive
diet, this new research might permit conclusions that
arise from potential interactions between specific foods
and nutrients. The Mediterranean diet focuses on
vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals and fish, with
limited consumption of meat and dairy products. It also
includes moderate alcohol intake--primarily wine with
meals--and emphasizes monounsaturated fats like
olive
oil.
The 2,258 subjects involved in this community-based
study were all part of the ongoing Washington Heights-Inwood
Columbia Aging Project, a population-based
epidemiological investigation of Alzheimer's disease and
related disorders led by Dr. Richard Mayeux, professor
of neurology, psychiatry and epidemiology, director of
the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, and co-director of
the Taub Institute of Research on Alzheimer's Disease
and the Aging Brain, Columbia University. At the
beginning of the study, among other exams and
screenings, each subject was tested for dementia.
Alzheimer's disease is a common cause of dementia and
one of the top-10 causes of death in the United States,
according to the Centers for
Disease Control and
Prevention. Researchers evaluated study participants
every 1.5 years. After 4 years, 262 subjects had been
diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers devised a scale, from zero to nine, to
indicate each individual's relative adherence to a
Mediterranean-style diet. In the published findings,
Scarmeas et al. note that participants who had a higher
tendency toward following the diet showed a
significantly lower risk--up to 40%--of developing
Alzheimer's disease. They note that this association
remained significant even when other factors, including
age, gender, ethnicity, education, caloric intake,
body-mass index, smoking and any preexisting diseases or
conditions, were taken into consideration. For each
point higher an individual scored on the scale, their
risk for developing Alzheimer's disease dropped by about
10%.
The researchers note that the anti-inflammatory and
antioxidant properties of some of the Mediterranean
diet's components, which can contribute to lower
incidences of cardiovascular diseases, might have a
causal relationship with the resultant
reduction of
Alzheimer's disease risk.
