Mediterranean diet (MD) has gained renowned reputation for its benefits to metabolic health, especially reducing the risk of cardiovascular events. The diet features an unambiguous combination of nutrients that encourages higher intake of dietary fibre, includes quality protein with unsaturated fats, while limits saturated fats and refined carbohydrates. Some previous studies have suggested a protective association between adherence to MD and cognitive decline (CD), but it was rare to use combination of diverse biomarkers to monitor adherence to specific dietary pattern for the investigation of association between dietary adherence and CD before a nested case-control study done by Tor-Roca and fellows. The study laid focus on producing new evidence for a better understanding of the impact of MD on CD in older adults using the Mediterranean Diet Metabolomic Score (MDMS), a scale developed by the team incorporating two metabolomic biomarkers of seven key components of MD (vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals, dairy, fats, and fish). The longitudinal data of 840 dementia-free older adults from two cities of France with a 12-year follow-up showed a negative association between MDMS and risk of CD, supporting the protective effect of greater adherence to MD against CD in older population. Beyond the consistent finding, this study can actually be a showcase for future research to adopt metabolomic score to measure the impact of a dietary pattern on cognitive health.

References

Tor-Roca A, et al. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2023 Oct 24:e2300271. 

Cleveland Clinic. Mediterranean Diet. Available from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/16037-mediterranean-diet