"Eating a Mediterranean diet can slow down cognitive decline. The Mediterranean diet can improve your mind as well your heart shows a study published in the openaccess journal Frontiers in Nutrition httpjournal.frontiersin.orgarticle.fnut..full. By sticking to the Mediterranean diet the study showed that people had slowed rates of cognitive decline reduced conversion to Alzheimers and improved cognitive function. The main foods in the Mediterranean diet MedDiet include plant foods such as leafy greens fresh fruit and vegetables cereals beans seeds nuts and legumes. The MedDiet is also low in dairy has minimal red meat and uses olive oil as its major source of fat. Leading author Roy Hardman from the Centre for Human Psychopharmacology Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne Australia and his colleagues evaluated all the available papers between  that investigated if and how a MedDiet may impact cognitive processes over time. In total  out of the  articles met their strict inclusion criteria. The most surprising result was that the positive effects were found in countries around the whole world. So regardless of being located outside of what is considered the Mediterranean region the positive cognitive effects of a higher adherence to a MedDiet were similar in all evaluated papers he said. Attention memory and language improved. Memory in particular was positively affected by the MedDiet including improvements in delayed recognition longterm and working memory executive function and visual constructs. Why is a higher adherence to the MedDiet related to slowing down the rate of cognitive decline The MedDiet offers the opportunity to change some of the modifiable risk factors he explained. These include reducing inflammatory responses increasing micronutrients improving vitamin and mineral imbalances changing lipid profiles by using olive oils as the main source of dietary fats maintaining weight and potentially reducing obesity improving polyphenols in the blood improving cellular energy metabolism and maybe changing the gut microbiota although this has not been examined to a larger extent yet. Moreover the benefits to cognition afforded by the MedDiet were not exclusive to older individuals. Two of the included studies focused on younger adults and they both found improvements in cognition using computerized assessments. The researchers stress that research in this area is important due to the expected extensive population aging over the next  years. They envision that the utilization of a dietary pattern such as the MedDiet will be an essential tool to maintain quality of life and reduce the potential social and economic burdens of manifested cognitive declines like dementia. I would therefore recommend people to try to adhere or switch to a MedDiet even at an older age Hardman added. Like many researchers Hardman takes his research home I follow the diet patterns and do not eat any red meats chicken or pork. I have fish twothree times per week and adhere to a Mediterranean style of eating. SEE ORIGINAL STUDY httpdx.doi.org.fnut.."