Mediterranean diet may protect your brain in old age, new finding suggests

Amid the contention about diets and detoxes, sugar and fats, there is at least general agreement that a Mediterranean diet – fruit, vegetables, olive oil, grains, fish – is a good thing. Now, a new study based on brain imaging in over 400 people seems to show that we have even more reason to celebrate this diet and, more importantly, to stick to it. The researchers found that over a three-year period – from the age of 73 to 76 – adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with a reduction in the inevitable loss of brain volume that occurs with age.

The difference in volume loss associated with the diet is not large – about 2.5ml (half a teaspoon) – and it only accounts for a very small fraction of overall volume variability. But, who’s to say what you might achieve with that extra half teaspoon of brain? If these results prove reliable, there is surely an incentive to stock up on family-sized bottles of olive oil.

We already have evidence that the Mediterranean diet, and particularly higher fish and lower meat consumption, is associated with increased brain size. But it’s hard to interpret associations between lifestyle and the brain because a causal relationship is equally credible in both directions. That is to say, if I eat healthily and have a big brain, it might be that my diet is good for my brain or my big brain is good at helping me maintain my diet. Or there may be something that I haven’t measured, something that influences my brain and my diet separately. For example, if I live a comfortable, affluent, stress-free life perhaps this is simultaneously good for my brain and facilitates my healthy diet. If so, finding a healthy association between diet and a big brain does not mean that they are directly related.

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Image: Vegetable and fruits
Credit: Jan Fidler


Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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