If you’ve hit your 40s and want to protect your cognitive abilities, new research has shown that following a diet rich in plants can help.
A recent study led by the NYU Grossman School of Medicine indicates that women who adopted the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) during their middle years were approximately 17 percent less likely to experience cognitive decline in later life.
This is particularly significant for women, who constitute more than two-thirds of Alzheimer’s disease diagnoses. The study is published in the scientific journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia and has potential implications for the roughly 6.5 million Americans over 65 diagnosed with Alzheimer’s as of 2022—a figure expected to more than double by 2060.
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The DASH diet, which prioritizes the consumption of plant foods, focuses on a high intake of foods rich in potassium, calcium, and magnesium while minimizing saturated fats, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar.
“Subjective complaints about daily cognitive performance are early predictors of more serious neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s,” Yu Chen, PhD, MPH, the senior author of the study, said in a statement.
“With more than 30 years follow-up, we found that the stronger the adherence to a DASH diet in midlife, the less likely women are to report cognitive issues much later in life,” Chen said.
Plant-forward DASH diet slows cognitive decline
The research team here analyzed data from 5,116 women out of over 14,000 enrolled in the NYU Women’s Health Study. They examined dietary patterns through questionnaires filled out between 1985 and 1991 when the average age of participants was 49.
The women were subsequently followed for more than 30 years and were asked to report any cognitive issues. Self-reported cognitive complaints were evaluated using six validated questions indicative of mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to dementia.
“Our data suggest that it is important to…
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