2023-11-20 11:45:19
A recent study explored the question of whether older people who follow a Mediterranean diet have a lower risk of cognitive decline.
The study was carried out by the team of Mireia Urpí-Sardá, associate professor of the Biomarkers and Nutritional and Food Metabolomics Research Group of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences at the University of Barcelona (UB), the Institute for Research in Nutrition and Food Safety (INSA) of the UB, the Torribera Food Campus of the UB and the Center for Biomedical Research in Fragility and Healthy Aging Network (CIBERFES), in Spain.
The results of the new study indicate that older people who follow the Mediterranean diet guidelines have a lower risk of suffering cognitive decline.
This study also provides new and revealing data on the biological mechanisms related to the impact of diet on cognitive health in the aging population.
This European study, framed in the Joint Programming Initiative “A healthy diet for a healthy life” (JPI HDHL), has been developed for twelve years and has had the participation of 840 people over 65 years of age (65% of them, women) from the regions of Bordeaux and Dijon (France).
Healthy diet and cognitive performance
As Cristina Andrés-Lacueva, professor at the UB and group leader of CIBERFES, explains, “within the framework of the study, a dietary metabolomic index has been designed – based on biomarkers obtained from the serum of the participants – on the food groups that make up part of the Mediterranean diet. Once this metabolomic index is known, its association with cognitive impairment is evaluated.
In the work, reference levels of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, polyphenol metabolites derived from the intestinal microbiota and other phytochemicals present in serum that reflect the individual bioavailability of each person were chosen as biomarkers. Some of these indicators have not only been recognized as exposure markers of the main food groups of the Mediterranean diet, but have also been held responsible for the beneficial health effects of said dietary pattern.
The metabolome or set of metabolites—related to food and derived from the activity of the intestinal microbiota—was studied through large-scale quantitative metabolomic analyzes from the serum of participants without dementia from the beginning of the study. Cognitive impairment was assessed using five neuropsychological tests over twelve years.
As a result, the study reveals a protective association between Mediterranean diet score based on serum biomarkers and cognitive decline in older people.
Fruits such as orange, apple and pear are typical in the Mediterranean diet. (Photo: Amazings/NCYT)
Biomarkers to study the benefits of diet
According to Professor Mercè Pallàs, from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences and the Institute of Neurosciences of the UB (UBneuro), “the use of dietary pattern indices based on biomarkers of food intake represents a step forward towards “use of more precise, objective dietary evaluation methodologies that take into account factors as important as bioavailability.”
The expert Alba Tor-Roca, first signatory of the study and CIBERFES researcher at the University of Barcelona, details that “we found that adherence to the Mediterranean diet evaluated by a panel of dietary biomarkers is inversely associated with long-term cognitive deterioration in old people. “This result supports the use of these indicators in long-term follow-up evaluations to observe the health benefits associated with the Mediterranean diet or other dietary patterns and thus guide personalized advice in older ages.”
The work has been carried out with the collaboration of teams from the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the Faculty of Biology and the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutic Chemistry of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences of the UB. Teams from the University of Bordeaux and the INRAE center at Clermont-Ferrand University (France), King’s College London (United Kingdom), the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) and the Parcels Private University of Medicine in Salzburg ( Austria).
The study is titled “A Mediterranean Diet-Based Metabolomic Score and Cognitive Decline in Older Adults: A Case-Control Analysis Nested within the Three-City Cohort Study”. And it has been published in the academic journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research. (Source: UB)
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