MIND Diet Linked to Better Brain Vessels and Cognitive Health

A study from Rush points to another way diet may support the brain. Researchers found an association between the MIND diet, healthier blood vessels in the brain, greater brain volume and stronger cognitive performance.

The MIND diet has already been tied to slower cognitive decline and a lower chance of dementia. It encourages more:

• Leafy green vegetables
• Berries
• Whole grains, nuts, olive oil, beans and legumes

It also calls for less:

• Fried foods
• Butter
• Sweets, pastries and processed red meat

“We found that people who more closely followed the MIND diet had lower levels of cerebral small vessel disease and healthier brain structure,” said Puja Agarwal, PhD, study author and assistant professor in the Rush Department of Internal Medicine. “These factors appeared to help explain why better diet quality is associated with better cognitive function.”

The study, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, included 761 older adults who did not have known dementia at the start of the research. Those who followed the diet more closely showed less evidence of cerebral arteriosclerosis, a hardening and narrowing of small blood vessels in the brain.

They also had larger brain volume and fewer white matter hyperintensities, the white spots seen on MRI scans that are closely linked with dementia risk in older adults.

“This study helps show a possible underlying mechanism for how diet may affect the brain,” Agarwal said. “This adds to a body of evidence that shows diet not only affects overall health, but also the structure and vascular health of the brain.”

Researchers analyzed MRI data from two Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center cohorts, the Religious Orders Study and the Rush Memory and Aging Project, and then tested the findings in the Minority Aging Research Study. These are long-running clinical-pathological studies of aging and Alzheimer’s disease. The team used a neuroimaging measure of cerebral arteriosclerosis called ARTS. With the trained ARTS algorithm, MRI can identify signs of arteriolosclerosis in the brain.

“ARTS is a fully automated MRI-based marker of arteriolosclerosis that was trained using data collected over the course of decades,” said Konstantinos Arfanakis, PhD, co-author of the study and professor in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. “This tool takes data from a living person and gives a score to indicate whether a person has a high chance of having arteriolosclerosis.”

Since 2006, the team has been collecting data to train machine-learning algorithms that can predict pathologies from MRI findings that were once detectable only at autopsy. Arteriolosclerosis pathology, which can also show up as bright white spots on MRI, is linked to lower cognition and to hypertension and other vascular risk factors. In the study, this measure was associated with diet in both the Rush Memory and Aging Project and the Minority Aging Research Study.

“One of the most striking findings was that the relationship remained significant even after accounting for factors such as physical activity, body mass index, race and vascular disease,” Agarwal said. “This suggests that diet may have an independent role in supporting brain health.”

“The ARTS biomarker provides a new way to evaluate cerebral small vessel disease during life and helps us better understand how lifestyle factors such as diet influence brain aging,” Arfanakis said.

“People don’t necessarily need to make dramatic changes overnight,” Agarwal said. “Increasing foods encouraged on the MIND diet, such as leafy greens and berries, while reducing foods like fried items, butter and pastries, may contribute to better long-term brain health.”

Arfanakis and colleagues are now studying other possible MRI markers of brain pathology that may have been detectable only after death in the past.

The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institutes of Health.