How to Fight Alzheimer’s Disease with Your Diet

Studies show that the MIND diet could help combat Alzheimer’s disease.

When it comes to fad diets, I always say to steer clear of them since they may help accomplish your goals in the short term, but it is much healthier to just adopt healthy eating as a lifestyle overall. The MIND diet is worth discussing however, since it is easy to adopt, and could potentially help alleviate the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

MIND, which is short for Mediterranean- Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay is a DASH Diet, which means it is a diet whose approach is to stop hypertension. Researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found that people who followed the MIND diet were able to reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 53% in some cases. Even those who didn’t follow the diet completely by the book reduced their risk by 35%. The study was conducted between 2004 and 2013, and studied 923 participants who lived in senior homes throughout Chicago.

READ MORE: Trick Yourself into Healthy Eating

As many as 5.1 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease according to the Alzheimer’s Association of America, so any prevention method, especially one as easy to implement as diet, is worth a second look. In order to follow the MIND diet, food is categorized into 15 groups. There are 10 categories of ‘brain healthy’ foods, and five categories of ‘unhealthy’ foods for the brain. The rules are as follows:

-Eat one serving of leafy dark green veggies and one other vegetable every day

-Three servings of whole grains daily

-When you get hungry, eat small servings of nuts

-Every other day, eat a serving of beans

-Eat chicken twice a week, and fish once per week

-Drink one glass of wine per day (my fave)

-Eat two servings of berries per week

On the flip side, there are certain foods that you should just stay away from, or at the very least, limit yourself mercilessly.

-Red meat

-Pastries and anything with high sugar content

-Whole fat cheese

-Anything fried

-Butter and margarine

We all know that strawberries and blueberries have a positive effect on the brain and cognition, but now it is becoming apparent that many other foods have benefits too. So if you are worried about Alzheimers, disease, have a family history, or are getting to that certain age where it is becoming a possibility, try out the MIND diet. At the very least, you will end up feeling and looking healthier for it.

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