A brand new study has revealed that one of the keys to reducing someone’s risk of dementia could be in maintaining a healthy diet from childhood.
The study, published at the Nutrition 2024 conference, found that a healthy diet from someone’s earliest years all the way through to middle age could potentially lower the likelihood of developing the deadly neurological condition.
The study analysed data from 3.059 Britons whose diets were followed over the course of nearly 70 years. The participants voluntarily gave data on their dietary intake and cognitive performance over seven decades.
According to the study authors, these findings suggest that the establishment of healthy diet patterns in early life is essential to maintaining neurological health in the long term.
The Independent reported that the study’s co-author Kelly Cara also highlighted the importance of maintaining healthy diet patterns in midlife as well as early life.
She said: “Our findings also provide new evidence suggesting that improvements to dietary patterns up to midlife may influence cognitive performance and help mitigate, or lessen, cognitive decline in later years.”
Other scientists behind the study said that even minor differences in the quality of someone’s diet in early childhood could have had an impact on their neurological health in later life.
The latest insight into dementia prevention as research continues into how the disease can be prevented as well as treated and cured. Another recent study discovered that a popular breakfast staple could be key in reducing someone’s risk of developing the condition.
This study, published in the Journal of Nutrition found that eating eggs could reduce someone’s likelihood of developing the most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s. The study authors came to their hypothesis after assessing data from more than 1,000 participants.
Speaking about the results, they said: “Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder with increasing prevalence due to population ageing. Eggs provide many nutrients important for brain health, including choline, omega-3 fatty acids, and lutein.
“Emerging evidence suggests that frequent egg consumption may improve cognitive performance on verbal tests, but whether consumption influences the risk of Alzheimer’s dementia and AD is unknown.
“These findings suggest that frequent egg consumption is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s dementia and AD pathology, and the association with Alzheimer’s dementia is partially mediated through dietary choline.”
