A new study from Rush suggests one more way diet may support brain health. Researchers found an association between the MIND diet and healthier blood vessels in the brain, larger brain volume and better cognitive function.
"We found that people who more closely followed the MIND diet had lower levels of cerebral small vessel disease and healthier brain structure,” said Puja Agarwal, PhD, study author and assistant professor in the Rush Department of Internal Medicine. “These factors appeared to help explain why better diet quality is associated with better cognitive function."
The study was published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. It included 761 older adults without known dementia at the start of the study. People who followed the diet more closely had less evidence of cerebral arteriosclerosis, a hardening and narrowing of small blood vessels in the brain.
They also had more brain volume and fewer white matter hyperintensities, which are white spots that appear on an MRI scan that are closely associated with dementia risk in older adults.
“This study helps show a possible underlying mechanism for how diet may affect the brain,” Agarwal said. “This adds to a body of evidence that shows diet not only affects overall health, but also the structure and vascular health of the brain.”
The researchers used MRI data from two Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center groups: the Religious Orders Study and the Rush Memory and Aging Project, and further tested and validated the findings in the Minority Aging Research Study. The groups are long-term clinical-pathological studies tracking aging and Alzheimer's disease. The study used a neuroimaging measure of cerebral arteriosclerosis called ARTS. Using the trained ARTS algorithm, MRI can detect the signatures of arteriolosclerosis in the brain.
“ARTS is a fully automated MRI-based marker of arteriolosclerosis that was trained using data collected over the course of decades,” said Konstantinos Arfanakis, PhD, co-author of the study and professor in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. “This tool takes data from a living person and gives a score to indicate whether a person has a high chance of having arteriolosclerosis.”
Since 2006, the team has been collecting specific types of data to train, with machine learning, algorithms that predict pathologies based on MRI that were previously only detectable upon autopsy. Arteriolosclerosis pathology, which may also appear as bright white spots on the MRI, is associated with lower cognition. It’s also related to hypertension and other similar vascular risk factors. In the study, this measure was associated with a participant's diet in the Rush Memory and Aging Project and in the Minority Aging Research Study.
"One of the most striking findings was that the relationship remained significant even after accounting for factors such as physical activity, body mass index, race and vascular disease,” Agarwal said. “This suggests that diet may have an independent role in supporting brain health."
"The ARTS biomarker provides a new way to evaluate cerebral small vessel disease during life and helps us better understand how lifestyle factors such as diet influence brain aging," Arfanakis said.
The MIND diet has long been associated with slower cognitive decline and a lower risk of developing dementia. The diet emphasizes:
- Eating more leafy green vegetables
- Increasing berry consumption
- Choosing whole grains, nuts, olive oil, beans and legumes
- Limiting fried foods
- Reducing butter consumption
- Cutting back on sweets, pastries and processed red meat
"People don't necessarily need to make dramatic changes overnight,” Agarwal said. “Increasing foods encouraged on the MIND diet, such as leafy greens and berries, while reducing foods like fried items, butter and pastries, may contribute to better long-term brain health."
Arfanakis and team are currently studying other potential markers of brain pathologies that MRI may be able to detect that were previously undetectable until autopsy.
The study is funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institutes of Health.
