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Review
. 2020 Mar;15(3):394-400.
doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.266045.

Dietary habits, lifestyle factors and neurodegenerative diseases

Aurel Popa-Wagner  1 , Dinu Iuliu Dumitrascu  2 , Bogdan Capitanescu  3 , Eugen Bogdan Petcu  1 , Roxana Surugiu  4 , Wen-Hui Fang  5 , Danut-Adrian Dumbrava  4
Affiliations
Review

Dietary habits, lifestyle factors and neurodegenerative diseases

Aurel Popa-Wagner et al. Neural Regen Res. 2020 Mar.

Abstract

Worldwide stroke is increasing in parallel with modernization, changes in lifestyle, and the growing elderly population. Our review is focused on the link between diet, as part of 'modern lifestyle', and health in the context of genetic predisposition of individuals to 'unhealthy' metabolic pathway activity. It is concluded that lifestyle including high sugar diets, alcohol and tobacco addiction or high fat diets as well as ageing, brain injury, oxidative stress and neuroinflammation, negatively influence the onset, severity and duration of neurodegenerative diseases. Fortunately, there are several healthy dietary components such as polyunsaturated fatty acids and the anti-oxidants curcumin, resveratrol, blueberry polyphenols, sulphoraphane, salvionic acid as well as caloric restriction and physical activity, which may counteract ageing and associated neurodegenerative diseases via increased autophagy or increased neurogenesis in the adult brain.

Keywords: brain injury; dietary habits; lifestyle; metaflammation; neurodegeneration; oxidative stress; type 2 diabetes mellitus.

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Conflict of interest statement

None

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Prodegeneration factors including ageing, obesity and unhealthy diets could be balanced by physical activity, caloric restriction, and anti-oxidants to mitigate the onset, severity and duration of neurodegenerative diseases. AD: Alzheimer’s disease.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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