As people age, inflammation within their immune system increases, damaging cells.
One of the best ways to reduce inflammation lies not in the medicine cabinet, but in the refrigerator.
By following an anti-inflammatory diet, people can fight off inflammation for good.
In a study from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, scientists found that people who consumed an anti-inflammatory diet that includes more fruits, vegetables, beans, and tea or coffee, had a lower risk of developing dementia later in life.
The team looked at 1,059 people in Greece with an average age of 73 who did not have dementia.
Each person answered a food frequency questionnaire that is commonly used to determine the inflammatory potential of a person’s diet.
The questionnaire sought information on the main food groups consumed during the previous month, including dairy products, cereals, fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, and legumes, which include beans, lentils and peas, added fats, alcoholic beverages, stimulants and sweets.
A possible dietary inflammatory score can range from -8.87 to 7.98, with higher scores indicating a more inflammatory diet, which includes fewer servings of fruits, vegetables, beans and tea or coffee.
The team notes that multiple nutrients in all foods contribute to the inflammatory nature of a person’s diet.
Researchers divided the participants into three equal groups: those with the lowest dietary inflammatory scores, medium scores and highest scores.
Those in the group with the lowest scores of -1.76 and lower, indicating a more anti-inflammatory diet, ate an average per week of 20 servings of fruit, 19 of vegetables, four of beans or other legumes and 11 of coffee or tea per week.
Those in the group with the highest scores, 0.21 and above, indicating a more inflammatory diet, ate an average per week of nine servings of fruit, 10 of vegetables, two of legumes and nine of coffee or tea.
The team followed up with each person for an average of three years. Over the course of the study, 62 people, or 6%, developed dementia.
The researchers found that each one-point increase in dietary inflammatory score was associated with a 21% increase in dementia risk.
Compared to the lowest third of participants who consumed the least inflammatory diet, those in the top third were three times more likely to develop dementia.
The team says these results are getting us closer to characterizing and measuring the inflammatory potential of people’s diets.
That in turn could help inform more tailored and precise dietary recommendations and other strategies to maintain cognitive health.
If you care about nutrition, please read studies about how the Mediterranean diet could protect your brain health, and Vitamin B supplements could help reduce dementia risk.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies about antioxidants that could help reduce dementia risk, and Vitamin D deficiency linked to higher dementia risk.
The study was conducted by Nikolaos Scarmeas et al and published in Neurology.
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