By now, you probably heard about the health benefits of following a Mediterranean diet. Experts said emulating the Greeks' eating style will lower your chances of developing Alzheimer's disease, memory loss, and heart diseases.
A Mediterranean diet involves high consumption of vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains, while avoiding processed food and sugar. Following this diet means favoring lean sources of protein like chicken, turkey, and fish instead of red meat, which contains dangerous saturated fat. Olive oil is the Mediterranean diet's major source of healthy fat.
A new research published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition found that following a Mediterranean diet helps improve the brain's cognition and slows down its cognitive decline. Mediterranean food also lowers the brain's decline to Alzheimer's disease, Express reported from study author Roy Hardman, who's with Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.
The researchers believe that a Mediterranean diet's high content of vitamins and omega-3 poly-unsaturated fats have long-term benefits to the brain's cognitive process. Participants of the study who follow the diet are reported to exhibit improvements in attention, language, and memory. Long-term and working memory functions, in particular, according to CTV News.
The good effects of a Mediterranean diet don't just show up in older people. Young adults also benefit from following this eating lifestyle. Hardman noted that adhering to a Mediterranean diet fits everyone, and practicing it even later in life produces significant changes to the body.
Dr. James Pickett of the Alzheimer's Society supported the new study's findings. According to Pickett, the research proves that a Mediterranean diet doesn't just benefit people living in the Mediterranean region (Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, and Turkey, among others); this food lifestyle also has positive effects on those individuals that reside outside of the region.
Pickett added that the full range of a Mediterranean diet's benefits can be amplified if a person also follows regular exercise routines and stays away from vices like smoking and drinking. Altogether, this kind of lifestyle helps people stave off memory problems and heart ailments.
Another study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in July found that a Mediterranean diet improves bone health and lowers risk of breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, and heart problems, just like what the other research stated. Another paper published in June found that a high-fat Mediterranean diet is more effective at helping people achieve weight loss than low-fat diets, CNN reported.
Healthy fat includes avocado, nuts, canola oil, and olive oil. The last two ingredients should be used as the main cooking component in people's daily diets.
