People who followed either the Mediterranean or Mediterranean-inspired MIND diets were found to have fewer signs of Alzheimer’s disease in their brains at autopsy, according to a new study on nearly 600 elderly adults.
In the observational study, a team of scientists at Rush University in Chicago monitored the diets of 581 older adults until their death. The participants had an average age of 84 at the time of enrollment, with a great majority (73 percent) of them being women.
Each of the participants agreed to have their brains studied at Rush’s neurological research center after death. When examining those brains, the scientists specifically looked for two hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease: amyloid plaques, which are buildups of protein fragments that can disrupt the communication between nerve cells; and tau tangles, which occur when a protein called tau become abnormally shaped and can no longer do its job to transport nutrients and other essential substances in nerve cells….