Eating well is good for physical health, but also for the brain and memory. The Mediterranean diet and one of its variants, the Mind diet, would protect seniors from the risk of memory loss according to a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The researchers asked 5,907 elderly people participating in the Health and Retirement Study to complete a questionnaire on their eating habits. They then measured their cognitive functions such as memory and attention span.
The results show that volunteers who adopted a Mediterranean or Mind diet had significantly better brain function than those on less healthy diets.
fruits and cereals
The Mediterranean diet consists of lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, potatoes, nuts, olive oil and fish. It bans industrial or fried foods, snacks, fast foods, red meat, poultry and whole milk products. It reduces the risk of a low score on cognition tests by 35%. The Mind diet has a -15% influence on this same risk. This is a variant that allows about fifteen foods. Ten of them are considered healthy: greens and other vegetables, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, poultry, olive oil, seafood, wine. And 5 considered bad: red meat, butter and margarine, cheese, pastry, sweets, fried food and fast food.
These two dietary styles also reduce the risk of developing cognitive disorders.
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