Neuroprotective Diets Are Associated with Better Cognitive Function: The Health and Retirement Study

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the association between theMediterranean diet (MedDiet) and the Mediterranean-DASH diet Intervention for Neurodegeneration Delay(MIND diet) and cognition in a nationally representativepopulation of older U.S. adults.DESIGN: Population-based cross-sectional study.SETTING: Health and Retirement Study.PARTICIPANTS: Community-dwelling older adults(N = 5,907; mean age 67.8  10.8).MEASUREMENTS: Adherence to dietary patterns wasdetermined from food frequency questionnaires using crite-ria determined a priori to generate diet scores for the Med-Diet (range 0–55) and MIND diet (range 0–15). Cognitiveperformance was measured using a composite test score ofglobal cognitive function (range 0–27). Linear regressionwas used to compare cognitive performance according totertiles of dietary pattern. Logistic regression was used toexamine the association between dietary patterns and clini-cally significant cognitive impairment. Models wereadjusted for age, sex, race, educational attainment, andother health and lifestyle covariates.RESULTS: Participants with mid (odds ratio (OR) = 0.85,95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.71–1.02, P = .08) andhigh (OR 0.65, 95% CI = 0.52–0.81, P < .001) MedDietscores were less likely to have poor cognitive performancethan those with low scores in fully adjusted models.Results for the MIND diet were similar. Higher scores ineach dietary pattern were independently associated withOBJECTIVES: To evaluate the association between theMediterranean diet (MedDiet) and the Mediterranean-DASH diet Intervention for Neurodegeneration Delay(MIND diet) and cognition in a nationally representativepopulation of older U.S. adults.DESIGN: Population-based cross-sectional study.SETTING: Health and Retirement Study.PARTICIPANTS: Community-dwelling older adults(N = 5,907; mean age 67.8  10.8).MEASUREMENTS: Adherence to dietary patterns wasdetermined from food frequency questionnaires using crite-ria determined a priori to generate diet scores for the Med-Diet (range 0–55) and MIND diet (range 0–15). Cognitiveperformance was measured using a composite test score ofglobal cognitive function (range 0–27). Linear regressionwas used to compare cognitive performance according totertiles of dietary pattern. Logistic regression was used toexamine the association between dietary patterns and clini-cally significant cognitive impairment. Models wereadjusted for age, sex, race, educational attainment, andother health and lifestyle covariates.RESULTS: Participants with mid (odds ratio (OR) = 0.85,95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.71–1.02, P = .08) andhigh (OR 0.65, 95% CI = 0.52–0.81, P < .001) MedDietscores were less likely to have poor cognitive performancethan those with low scores in fully adjusted models.Results for the MIND diet were similar. Higher scores ineach dietary pattern were independently associated with