A new study has found that the type and amount of carbohydrates you eat could play a big role in whether you develop dementia later in life.
While getting older is one of the biggest risk factors for dementia, researchers say that eating a healthy diet—especially the right kind of carbohydrates—can help protect the brain and support healthy aging.
Carbohydrates are the main source of energy for most people and make up more than half of the calories in a typical diet. Because they have a direct effect on how the body uses glucose and insulin, the quality and quantity of carbs we eat may affect our risk of diseases like Alzheimer’s.
One important measure to understand is the glycemic index, or GI. This is a scale from 0 to 100 that shows how fast a food raises blood sugar after it is eaten. Foods like white bread and potatoes have a high GI, which means they raise blood sugar quickly. On the other hand, fruits, legumes, and whole grains have a lower GI and raise blood sugar more slowly.
The study was carried out by researchers from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, the TecnATox center, and the Pere Virgili Health Research Institute. They looked at data from more than 200,000 adults in the United Kingdom.
At the beginning of the study, none of the participants had dementia. The researchers used food questionnaires to find out what kinds of carbohydrates each person ate and calculate the glycemic index and glycemic load of their diets.
Over an average of 13 years, 2,362 participants developed dementia. After analyzing the data, the researchers found a clear pattern: people who ate more low-GI foods had a lower risk of dementia, while those who ate more high-GI foods had a higher risk.
Diets that had a low to moderate glycemic index were linked to a 16% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s. In contrast, eating a high-GI diet was associated with a 14% increase in the risk of dementia.
Professor Mònica Bulló, the lead researcher on the study, explained that eating foods with a low glycemic index—such as fruit, legumes, and whole grains—could help lower the chances of cognitive decline and diseases like Alzheimer’s. She emphasized that it’s not just about how many carbohydrates you eat, but also the type.
This study adds to the growing evidence that what we eat can have a big impact on our brain health. While many people think about carbs in relation to weight or energy, this research shows that carbs may also play a role in brain aging and memory. Choosing the right kinds of carbohydrates could become an important part of preventing dementia.
In conclusion, this study shows that diets rich in slowly-digesting carbs may help protect the brain. It highlights the importance of making smart food choices—especially choosing whole grains, fruits, and legumes—when planning meals. These small changes in diet could make a big difference in brain health over time.
If you care about brain health ,please read studies about Vitamin B9 deficiency linked to higher dementia risk, and cranberries could help boost memory.
For more health information, please see recent studies about heartburn drugs that could increase risk of dementia, and results showing this MIND diet may protect your cognitive function, prevent dementia.
The study is published in International Journal of Epidemiology.
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