While dementia has victimized people of all backgrounds indiscriminately, there are small, easy measures that can help prevent it.
A study in Neurology, the official medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, has shed some light a simple preventative measure: an anti-inflammatory diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, beans, coffee, and tea.
“Diet is a lifestyle factor you can modify, and it might play a role in combating inflammation, one of the biological pathways contributing to risk for dementia and cognitive impairment later in life,” said Nikolaos Scarmeas, MD, PhD, of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.
Professors at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece conducted a case study of 1,000 septuagenarians and assessed their overall food consumption and cognitive abilities. In the study, they discovered that anti-inflammatory diets could actually reduce the chances of dementia.
In the healthiest cases, participants consumed approximately three servings of fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. And on a weekly basis, they consumed four servings of beans or other legumes and 11 cups of coffee or tea.
As a part of the case study, participants completed a food frequency survey. The survey asked about the intake of dairy products, cereals, fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, legumes (beans, lentils, and peas), added fats, alcoholic beverages, stimulants, and sweets.
A nutritional inflammatory index can extend from -8.87 to 7.98, with higher values indicating a more inflammatory diet. The index is categorized in three groups: low, medium, and high. The low range is -1.76 and lower. Participants in this low range consume an average of 20 servings of fruit, 19 servings of vegetables, four servings of legumes and nine cups of coffee or tea.
On the contrary, the high numbers showed a lower intake of anti-inflammatory diet. Participants with high scores averaged only nine servings of fruit, ten servings of vegetables and two servings of legumes. The high scores were 0.21 and higher.
The study was conducted over a three-year period. At the conclusion of the study, 6% of participants ended up with dementia. Those among that 6% who developed dementia had an average index of -0.06. Those who did not develop dementia had an average index of -0.70 (the low range).
Experts say that more than 7 million people aged 65 and older have dementia. More than 9 million Americans could develop dementia by 2030, and nearly 12 million by 2040, if current demographic and health trends continue. Alzheimer is the leading cause of dementia and is ranked the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S.
In 2019, approximately 3% of people aged 70 to 74 had dementia; 22% of people aged 85 to 89 had dementia; and 33% of people aged 90 and older had dementia. Women are a bit more likely than males to get dementia. In 2019, 11% of women and 8% of men older than 70 were diagnosed with dementia.
Non-Hispanic, White adults seem less likely than other racial and ethnic groups to develop dementia. In 2019, an estimated 8.5 percent of non-Hispanic, White adults aged 70 and older had dementia, compared to 16.1 percent of non-Hispanic, Black adults and 16.4 percent of Hispanic adults.
“Our results are getting us closer to characterizing and measuring the inflammatory potential of people’s diets,” Scarmeas said. “That in turn could help inform more tailored and precise dietary recommendations and other strategies to maintain cognitive health.”