Aging: Mediterranean Diet as Brain Food

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Published: January 13, 2011

Submitted by Carlos Mendoza

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The Mediterranean diet — heavy on vegetables, fish and olive oil, with moderate amounts of wine — may be associated with slower rates of mental decline in the elderly.

Some previous studies have suggested that the diet has beneficial effects for the brain, but the evidence has not been strong. A new report analyzed data from a continuing study of 3,790 Chicago residents 65 and older that began in 1993. The researchers tested the subjects’ mental acuity at three-year intervals, and tracked their degree of adherence to the Mediterranean diet on a 55-point scale.

High scores for adherence to the diet were associated with slower rates of cognitive decline, even after controlling for smoking, education, obesity, hypertension and other factors.

The lead author, Christine C. Tangney, an associate professor of nutrition at Rush Medical College in Chicago, said sticking to the diet made a large difference. Those in the top third for adherence, she said in a telephone interview, were cognitively the equivalent of two years younger than those in the bottom third.

The study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, has significant strengths in its prospective design, large sample and use of a well-validated dietary questionnaire. But the authors acknowledged that they could not account for all possible variables, and cautioned that it was an observational study that draws no conclusions about cause and effect.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 18, 2011, on page D6 of the New York edition.