The traditional Mediterranean diet, rich in foods such as seafood, vegetables, fruits and nuts, is associated with a reduced risk of dementia, according to research published in the journal "BMC Medicine", greekcitytimes.com reports.
Based on the research, people who follow the Mediterranean diet had up to a 23% lower risk of dementia compared to those who consumed Mediterranean foods less often.
Diet may be a significant risk factor for dementia and could be targeted for disease prevention and risk reduction, yet previous studies investigating the impact of the Mediterranean diet were usually limited to a small sample and a low number of dementia cases.
In the present study, the researchers, led by Oliver Shannon from the University of Newcastle, analyzed data from 60,298 people from the UK biomedical database Biobank, who had completed a nutritional assessment.
The authors also looked at each person's genetic risk for dementia by estimating polygenic risk, meaning all the different genes connected with dementia risk.