Data from 60,298 individuals from the UK Biobank, a sizable cohort that included people from all over the UK and who had finished a dietary assessment, was examined by researchers.
The authors gave each person a score based on how closely their diet resembled the essential components of a Mediterranean diet. There were 882 incidences of dementia over the participants’ nearly ten-year follow-up period.
The scientists calculated each person’s polygenic risk—a measure of all the many genes associated with dementia risk—in order to take into account their genetic propensity for dementia.
With Professor Emma Stevenson and Professor David Llewellyn serving as co senior authors, Dr. Oliver Shannon, Lecturer in Human Nutrition and Ageing at Newcastle University, led the study.
Also, professionals from the universities of Edinburgh, UEA and Exeter and was part of the Medical Research Council-funded NuBrain consortium.Says Dr. Shannon “There are currently few treatment options available for dementia, which affects the lives of millions of people worldwide.
“Thus, a top concern for academics and clinicians is to find ways to lower our chance of getting dementia.
Our research indicates that one way to help people reduce their risk of dementia is to adopt a more Mediterranean-style diet.
The researchers discovered no statistically significant interaction between the relationships between Mediterranean diet adherence and the polygenic risk for dementia. This, they claim, may suggest that even for people with a higher genetic risk, adopting a healthier diet may lessen the risk of acquiring the disorder.
This result was inconsistent across all analyses, and the authors recommend additional study.
