\n While all three diets are plant-based and quite similar, the MIND method emphasizes eating specific foods<\/a> thought to reduce the risk of dementia: berries, beans, leafy green vegetables, fish, poultry, whole grains, olive oil and nuts. Foods with saturated fats, such as cheese, butter, red meat and fried foods, are extremely limited.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPeople who adhered more closely to the MIND diet seemed to show slower structural brain ageing over about 12 years of follow-up,\u201d said senior author Changzheng Yuan, a research professor at Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China, in an email.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn particular, they had slower loss of grey matter, which is the part of the brain that contains many of the nerve cells involved in memory, thinking, and decision-making,\u201d Yuan said.\n <\/p>\n \n Each three-point increase in adherence to the MIND diet was associated with 20% less shrinkage in gray matter, corresponding to a 2.5-year delay in brain aging, according to the study.\n <\/p>\n \n Both the Mediterranean and the MIND diets are linked in studies to improvements in cognitive decline and a lower risk of Alzheimer\u2019s disease. The new study\u2019s conclusions fall in line with those past findings and add \u201cfurther support for consuming a Mediterranean-type dietary pattern,\u201d said leading nutrition researcher Dr. Walter Willett in an email.\n <\/p>\n \n Willett, who is a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, was not involved in the study.\n <\/p>\n \n The study, published Tuesday<\/a> in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, analyzed the diet of over 1,600 adults participating in an offshoot of the Framingham Heart Study<\/a> \u2014 a decades-long study designed to identify factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease. This portion of the Framingham study, which began in 1999, enrolled people with an average age of 60 who had no evidence of stroke or dementia.\n <\/p>\n \n At several points over an average of 12 years, participants answered dietary questionnaires, underwent regular health checkups and had at least two MRI brain scans.\n <\/p>\n \n In addition to less shrinkage in gray matter, those participants who more closely followed the MIND Diet \u201chad slower enlargement of the ventricles, the fluid-filled spaces that tend to expand as brain tissue shrinks with age,\u201d Yuan said.\n <\/p>\n \n For every three points of closer adherence to the diet, the development of ventricles declined by 8%, reducing brain age by one year, the study found. The development of larger ventricles, which accelerates after age 60, is a sign of increased brain atrophy linked to Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/a> and cognitive decline<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n The study is observational, and thus cannot prove cause and effect, said Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine. He founded the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global coalition of experts dedicated to evidence-based lifestyle medicine.\n <\/p>\n \n Nor could the study exclude reverse causality, which occurs when the impact of an action is actually the cause, said Katz, who was not involved in the study.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn other words, people with healthier brain structure and function over time may have made better dietary choices,\u201d he said in an email. \u201cBut the more obvious causal pathway \u2014 eating well is good for brain structure and function \u2014 is the more plausible.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Berries and poultry contributed most to the antiaging impact found in the study \u2014 berries decreased the rate of ventricle enlargement, while poultry slowed both gray matter declines and ventricle enlargement.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cBerries are rich in antioxidants and other bioactive compounds, and poultry can provide high-quality protein as part of a balanced diet,\u201d said first author Hui Chen, a professor of psychology and behavioral sciences at Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn contrast, higher intakes of sweets and fried fast foods tended to be associated with faster brain aging over time,\u201d Chen said in an email.\n <\/p>\n \n Specifically, a higher intake of sweets and fried foods was associated with faster ventricular expansion, while eating more sweets led to more decay in the hippocampus, the organ in the brain most associated with memory.\n <\/p>\n \n There were unexpected findings as well: Cheese consumption appeared to protect the brain, while higher whole-grain intake was associated with faster declines in gray matter.\n <\/p>\n \n However, Chen said, cheese is so limited on the MIND diet that \u201cI would not interpret our findings as evidence that cheese itself protects the brain.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n As for whole grains, what was considered \u201cwhole grain\u201d in the 1990s may not meet today\u2019s standard for a truly healthy whole-grain food, Yuan said, so the finding should not be interpreted as whole grains are harmful for the brain.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI would be cautious about reducing the message to just a few individual foods, because what appears to matter most is the overall dietary pattern rather than any single item in isolation,\u201d Chen said. \u201cFoods are consumed together, and their combined effects may be more important than the contribution of one food alone.\u201d\n <\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/gettyimages-1173390257.jpg\")
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