People’s traditional healthy living practices from countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, such as France, Greece, Italy, and Spain, are included in a Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet has a variety of meanings since it differs by nation and area.
Vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, beans, cereals, grains, fish, and unsaturated fats like olive oil are abundant. It generally entails a restricted diet of meat and dairy products. The Mediterranean diet has been linked to a variety of health benefits, including a stronger heart.
How Adopting A Mediterranean Diet Can Help To Build Cognitive Functions And Memory
Those who have a sedentary lifestyle must focus on a better diet that can offer fewer calories and more energy. The Mediterranean diet focuses on various aspects of nutrition that one needs during his daily routine.
It ensures that there are no additional calories that can lead the fat to deposit in the body. Due to such aspects only it is much preferred by the nutritionists and dietitians from various corners.
The Mediterranean diet helps people with their cardiovascular health, enhances their memory, and stays off or slows down the onset of cognitive decline associated with age. However, not everyone benefits equally from these positive effects, raising the question of what kinds of dietary advice should be used to tailor them to the unique characteristics of each person.
Below mentioned are the main findings of a study published in Clinical Nutrition, led by researchers from the Medical Research’s Research Group in Integrated Pharmacology and Systems Neuroscience, and the group in Psychology and Mental Health of the Biomedical Research Institute IMIM-Hospital del Mar.
For three years, the researchers tracked a group of 487 volunteers, nearly half of whom were males and half of whom were women, with an average age of 65. They all took part in the PREDIMED-PLUS experiment, a multi-center study in which 23 Spanish research centers examine the impact of a typical Mediterranean diet with energy limitations, physical activity promotion, and behavioral intervention on weight reduction and cardiovascular disease prevention.
Participants were overweight or obese at the start of the research and satisfied at least three metabolic syndrome criteria: hypertension, hyperglycemia, cholesterol, and high triglycerides.
The metabolic syndrome is extremely prevalent, affecting about one in every four individuals worldwide, and is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and cognitive decline. The volunteers’ cognitive state was assessed using neuropsychological tests at the start of the trial, one year later, and three years later.
The researchers measured their memory and other cognitive abilities, such as their capacity to make judgments, reason, pay attention, plan, and ignore certain urges. According to earlier research, persons with metabolic syndrome who do not follow any sort of intervention would have their global cognition drop by about 0.4 points and their memory drop by 0.1 points after three years.
According to the study, this improvement can be attributed to weight reduction and increased physical activity, which is associated with a higher quality of life. In this regard, Rafael de la Torre, one of the study’s key researchers, believes that it’s “essential” since “people may not notice cognitive gains, but they can be more meaningful when paired with improvements in their quality of life.”
According to Natàlia Soldevila-Domènech, the Mediterranean diet provides the least benefit to women, the elderly, those with a lesser level of education, and those with type 2 diabetes. She claims that in this aspect, “Despite the fact that women showed less progress than men, all participants improved cognitively. Everyone benefits from a Mediterranean diet, although some people benefit more than others.”
