Your Aging Brain Needs This Diet | Increased Risk Of Alzheimer’s With Consumption Of Unhealthy Plant-Based Foods

According to SAEDNEWS, researchers reported that following a healthy plant-based diet in midlife reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

The key word is “healthy”—people in this study who consumed unhealthy plant-based foods such as French fries and fruit juice actually had a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Song-Yi Park, the lead researcher and epidemiologist at the University of Hawaii, said in a press release: “Our study showed that the quality of a plant-based diet matters, such that a higher-quality diet is associated with reduced risk and a lower-quality diet is associated with increased risk.”

The study does not prove that a plant-based diet prevents dementia; it only shows that there is an association. However, researchers found that changing the diet for better or worse could reduce or increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Park said: “We found that adopting a plant-based diet, even later in life, and avoiding low-quality plant-based diets is associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s and other dementia diseases.”

For the new study, researchers recruited nearly 93,000 residents of Hawaii and California, including African American, Japanese American, Latino, Native Hawaiian, and White participants.

Participants completed a dietary questionnaire, and researchers tracked three dietary patterns based on the data:

• A moderate plant-based diet: prioritizing vegetables and fruits over animal products such as meat, milk, and eggs.

• A healthy plant-based diet: prioritizing whole grains, fruits, vegetables, plant oils, nuts, legumes, tea, and coffee.

• An unhealthy plant-based diet: including high amounts of added sugar, fruit juice, refined grains, and fast-food products or processed potatoes such as French fries or chips.

Park said: “Plant-based diets have been beneficial in reducing the risk of diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, but there is less information about the risk of Alzheimer’s and other dementia diseases.”

Participants were on average 59 years old at the start of the study and were followed for about 11 years. During this period, nearly 21,500 people developed Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.

Overall, people who consumed the highest amount of plant-based foods had a 12 percent lower risk of dementia compared to those who consumed the least.

Researchers also found that those who consumed the healthiest plant-based foods had a 7 percent lower risk of dementia, while those who ate the unhealthiest plant-based foods had a 6 percent higher risk of dementia.

A smaller group of about 45,000 participants completed a second dietary questionnaire after 10 years.

The study showed that people whose diet became healthier had an 11 percent lower risk of dementia, while those whose diet worsened faced a 25 percent higher risk.

Researchers noted that plant-based diets can generally lower cholesterol levels and promote healthier aging. They are also rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

However, unhealthy foods such as fruit juice or refined grains can raise blood sugar levels and increase the risk of diabetes.

Park said: “Our findings suggest that it is not only important to follow a plant-based diet, but also to ensure that the diet is of high quality.”