Be careful about information published about the MIND diet and related diets. I saw two examples lately that I thought were rather misleading.
The first was on a Prevention.com web site. The site describes a bit about the MIND diet and quotes the statistics that it “may reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s by 53%.” Note that the articles about the MIND diet state that it may “slow cognitive decline” which is not quite the same as reducing the risk.
The part that I thought was misleading was that the article went on to describe 4 foods as key players in the MIND diet. Remember that there are 10 recommended foods, but the others were not mentioned.
Each of the 4 key foods was illustrated with a nice photo. Also, the research referred to was only partly from the MIND diet study and some of it was different. For example, in promoting fish, an article that recommended eating fish 3 times per week was described. This is probably what turned me off. I am not really a fish lover, but I can tolerate fish once a week. If I thought the MIND diet required me to eat fish 3 times per week, I would immediately shut down any further thought of following it.
Anyway, the article only partially describes the MIND diet. It doesn’t say anything that would hurt anyone, unless it turns them away from a diet that might help them.
The second article I saw was worse. It was in a Women’s World newspaper dated August 10, 2015, page 21. I never read this paper except for the front page when waiting at the cash register in the supermarket, but I saw this in the waiting room at a doctor’s office.
The MIND diet was not actually mentioned, but the Mediterranean Diet was described as helping to “stave off dementia.” That was attributed to Dr. Audrey Chun. I could not find a source for this but Dr. Chun does seem to be a legitimate authority on aging. It was the following sentence that caught my attention: “And the great news is, you don’t have to completely change your diet: Just 1/3 cup of nuts and 5 Tbs. of olive oil daily was shown to boost brain health!”
Do you know how many calories that is? According to http://nutritiondata.self.com , 1/3 cup of walnuts provides 255 calories and 5 Tbs, of Olive Oil provides 595 calories. That would be 850 calories daily.
I am assuming that Tbs. stands for Tablespoons. It must be a misprint?? Who could eat that many calories in just oil and nuts and have enough left for the other healthy foods. If you have read my previous post on my struggles to follow the MIND diet within 1000 calories per day, you know that I can’t eat anywhere near that much oil and nuts.
The source of that information was not clear in the article. The words ‘was shown to’ indicates there was a study involved, but the source was not cited. Although it was in the same article as the information attributed to Dr. Chun, it didn’t really connect to her either.
Anyway, be careful what you read. I was careful to give the recommendations described in the MIND study articles accurately. If you don’t have access to a library at which you can obtain the research articles, you can obtain them through the Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association site. Unfortunately, you will have to pay $30 each.
These are the articles and links at which you can access them:
- MIND diet slows cognitive decline with aging
http://www.alzheimersanddementia.com/article/S1552-5260(15)00194-6/pdf
I think this one has the clearest table of foods and frequency of servings – the scoring plan for the study on page 3.
- MIND diet associated with reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease
http://www.alzheimersanddementia.com/article/S1552-5260(15)00017-5/pdf