November 25, 2025, 10:09 am | Read time: 2 minutes
Lots of vegetables, olive oil, nuts, whole grains, and occasional fish—these foods form the core of not only my diet but also the Mediterranean diet. The latter has long been associated with heart and vascular health. A new long-term study now shows that the brain could also benefit from this diet. The study examined how the Mediterranean and MIND diets affect biomarkers, brain structure, and disease progression in Alzheimer’s patients and healthy adults. For “Highway to Health–Studies in Brief,” I took a closer look at the research.
What was studied? In a five-year study with exactly 1,500 participants—750 healthy adults and 750 people with Alzheimer’s—researchers examined how diet affects the brain.1 The Mediterranean diet was compared with the MIND diet. The latter is a combination of the Mediterranean and the blood pressure-lowering DASH diet. It is rich in vegetables, berries, whole grains, nuts, and olive oil.
The researchers recorded cognitive performance, lab values from blood and cerebrospinal fluid, brain scans, and the Alzheimer’s risk gene APOE4. To accurately capture the diet, the researchers used modern methods, including an app and artificial intelligence (AI), to precisely track dietary habits throughout the study period.
Results: Healthy participants maintained stable cognitive performance throughout the study. Participants with Alzheimer’s who consistently followed one of the two diets showed a significantly slower increase in Alzheimer’s biomarkers (amyloid-β, tau, and NfL) over five years. This suggests a slowed disease progression. Inflammation levels also remained lower.
Particularly, micronutrients like omega-3 fats, B vitamins, and polyphenols, which are abundant in these diets, were strongly associated with better cognitive performance. MRI scans showed that with healthier diets, the hippocampus and cortical thickness shrank significantly slower. The MIND diet was a slightly stronger predictor of better cognitive performance. APOE4 carriers experienced a greater overall decline. For this reason, they received targeted recommendations for extra omega-3 fats and polyphenols to combat their higher susceptibility to inflammation.
Significance: The MIND and Mediterranean diets are considered promising non-drug strategies for preventing and managing Alzheimer’s disease. A plant-focused diet with olive oil, nuts, whole grains, and berries can protect the brain in the long term.
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