Eating an anti-inflammatory diet of whole grains, fruits and vegetables instead of an inflammatory diet focused on red and processed meats and ultraprocessed foods, such as sugary cereals, sodas, fries and ice cream, lowered the risk of dementia by 31%, a new study found.
As CNN reports, that benefit held true even for people with existing diagnoses of cardiometabolic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease or stroke, said Abigail Dove, lead author of the study published on August 12 in the journal JAMA Network Open.
“Following an anti-inflammatory diet was related to lower risk of dementia, even among people with cardiometabolic diseases who are already at elevated risk of dementia,” said Dove, a doctoral student at the Aging Research Center at Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden, in an email.
In fact, people living with type 2 diabetes, stroke or heart disease who ate the most anti-inflammatory foods “developed dementia 2 years later than those with cardiometabolic diseases and a pro-inflammatory diet,” she added. Brain scans of those who followed an anti-inflammatory diet also showed significantly lower levels of brain biomarkers of neurodegeneration and vascular injury, Dove said.
Even though the study is observational and cannot show cause and effect, the findings reflect existing research that shows a link between dietary inflammation and brain health, said Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine who was not involved in the study, via email.
“It is highly likely that a higher quality, less inflammatory diet directly impacts multiple pathways related to brain and neurocognitive health over time,” said Katz, the founder of the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global coalition of experts dedicated to evidence-based lifestyle medicine.
While more research needs to be done, overall, “the signal is clear above the background noise,” Katz said. “Even after one is contending with a chronic, cardiometabolic condition, the adoption of a higher quality diet appears to offer some protection to the brain, reducing and delaying both functional and anatomical signs of degradation.”
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