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. 2006 Jun;59(6):912-21.
doi: 10.1002/ana.20854.

Mediterranean diet and risk for Alzheimer's disease

Nikolaos Scarmeas  1 , Yaakov Stern, Ming-Xin Tang, Richard Mayeux, Jose A Luchsinger
Affiliations

Mediterranean diet and risk for Alzheimer's disease

Nikolaos Scarmeas et al. Ann Neurol. 2006 Jun.

Abstract

Objective: Previous research in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has focused on individual dietary components. There is converging evidence that composite dietary patterns such as the Mediterranean diet (MeDi) is related to lower risk for cardiovascular disease, several forms of cancer, and overall mortality. We sought to investigate the association between MeDi and risk for AD.

Methods: A total of 2,258 community-based nondemented individuals in New York were prospectively evaluated every 1.5 years. Adherence to the MeDi (zero- to nine-point scale with higher scores indicating higher adherence) was the main predictor in models that were adjusted for cohort, age, sex, ethnicity, education, apolipoprotein E genotype, caloric intake, smoking, medical comorbidity index, and body mass index.

Results: There were 262 incident AD cases during the course of 4 (+/-3.0; range, 0.2-13.9) years of follow-up. Higher adherence to the MeDi was associated with lower risk for AD (hazard ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.83-0.98; p=0.015). Compared with subjects in the lowest MeDi tertile, subjects in the middle MeDi tertile had a hazard ratio of 0.85 (95% confidence interval, 0.63-1.16) and those at the highest tertile had a hazard ratio of 0.60 (95% confidence interval, 0.42-0.87) for AD (p for trend=0.007).

Interpretation: We conclude that higher adherence to the MeDi is associated with a reduction in risk for AD.

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Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1
Flow chart describing sample size. MeDi = Mediterranean diet.
Fig 2
Fig 2
Survival curves based on Cox analysis comparing cumulative Alzheimer’s disease (AD) incidence in subjects belonging to each Mediterranean diet (MeDi) tertile (p for trend = 0.007). Low tertile (score 0–3; light gray lines) corresponds to lower adherence to MeDi, middle tertile (score 4–5; dark gray lines) to middle adherence, and high tertile (score 6–9; black lines) to higher adherence. Figure is derived from a model that uses all subjects and is adjusted for cohort, age, sex, ethnicity, education, apolipoprotein E genotype, caloric intake, smoking, comorbidity index, and body mass index. Duration of follow-up is truncated at 10 years.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

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