Abstract
The Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) has been associated with reduced dementia incidence in several studies. It is important to understand if diet is associated with brain health in midlife, when Alzheimer's disease and related dementias are known to begin.
Methods
This study used data from the PREVENT dementia programme. Three MedDiet scores were created (the Pyramid, Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener [MEDAS] and MEDAS continuous) from a self-reported food frequency questionnaire. Primary outcomes were hippocampal volume and cube-transformed white matter hyperintensity volume. Secondary outcomes included cornu ammonis 1 and subiculum hippocampal subfield volumes, cortical thickness and measures of cognition. Sex-stratified analyses were run to explore differential associations between diet and brain health by sex. An exploratory path analysis was conducted to study if any associations between diet and brain health were mediated by cardiovascular risk factors for dementia.
Results
In all, 504 participants were included in this analysis, with a mean Pyramid score of 8.10 (SD 1.56). There were no significant associations between any MedDiet scoring method and any of the primary or secondary outcomes. There were no differences by sex in any analyses and no significant mediation between the Pyramid score and global cognition by cardiovascular risk factors.
Conclusions
Overall, this study did not find evidence for an association between the MedDiet and either neuroimaging or cognition in a midlife population study. Future work should investigate associations between the MedDiet and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias biomarkers as well as functional neuroimaging in a midlife population.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e16345 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | European Journal of Neurology |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| Early online date | 25 May 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2024 |
Funding
The PREVENT dementia programme is funded by the Alzheimer's Society (grant numbers 178, 264 and 329), Alzheimer's Association (grant number TriBEKa\u201017\u2010519,007) and philanthropic donations. The analytical work was funded by the MRC UK Nutrition Research Partnership (NRP) Collaboration Award (MR/T001852/1). Professor Muniz\u2010Terrera acknowledges the support of the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation through funding for the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation Ralph S. Licklider, D.O., Research Endowment in the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. The funders had no involvement in the protocol design, data collection, analysis or manuscript preparation. For the purpose of open access, the authors have applied a Creative Commons attribution (CC BY) licence to any author\u2010accepted manuscript version arising. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. SG is funded by the MRC UK Nutrition Research Partnership (NRP) Collaboration Award (MR/T001852/1). SG additionally received salary from Scottish Brain Sciences. GN and KW are funded by the PREVENT study funders (Alzheimer's Society, grant numbers 178, 264 and 329; Alzheimer's Association, grant number TriBEKa\u201017\u2010519,007; and philanthropic donations). John O'Brien has no conflicts related to this work. Outside of this work he has acted as a consultant for TauRx, Novo Nordisk, Biogen, Roche, Lilly and GE Healthcare and received grant or academic support from Avid/Lilly, Merck and Alliance Medical. CWR is the CEO and founder of Scottish Brain Sciences and has previously received consulting fees from Biogen, Eisai, MSD, Actinogen, Roche and Eli Lilly, as well as receiving speaker fees from Roche and Eisai. CWR sits on an NIHR data safety monitoring board and is on an advisory board for Roche Diagnostics. CWR is an unpaid chair of the Brain Health Clinic Consortium (sponsored by Biogen). No other conflicts of interest are declared by other authors.
Keywords
- diet
- neuroimaging
- cognition