The Mediterranean Diet and Brain Shrinkage

Adhering strictly to a Mediterranean diet could prevent your brain from shrinking as you age, a new study suggests.

HERE is a detailed article about the study from the New Scientist magazine, if you want to get deep into it.

Here is my summary, if you don't.

Some Scottish researchers surveyed a cohort of 401 elderly people (who have been followed as part of a larger ongoing health study since the late 1930s) about their dietary habits and then they MRI scanned their brains. People who followed a strict Mediterranean diet, rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and olive oil (and with less dairy and red meat), had 50% less brain shrinkage than people from the cohort who ate a typical Scottish diet (rich in haggis...just kidding).

Interestingly, these researchers found that fish consumption didn't necessarily correlate with bigger brains, as some previous studies have suggested.

Everyone's brain shrinks as they age. Eating a Mediterranean diet might slow that shrinkage and prevent neurological declines and pathologies like Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Tons of studies tout the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet, so it can't hurt and it might help.

That's all I have on this right now. Like I said, click the link for more.