A new study found that eating traditional Indian food can help lower Alzheimer's disease risk. The traditional food of India puts emphasis on plants, low intake of meat, and using herbs and spices.
The research, which was published in the journal American College of Nutrition, highlighted how Western diets with meat, pastries and sweets, and high-fat dairy (butter, margarine, cheese) increase Alzheimer's risk. William B. Grant, the study's author from Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center in San Francisco, California, acknowledged that a traditional Mediterranean diet also lowers Alzheimer's risk, but the traditional diets of India, Japan, and Nigeria are much better, Times of India reported.
Low Alzheimer's risk can be attained by consuming fruits, grains, vegetables like legumes, fish, and low-fat dairy products. Mediterranean diets cut the risk of Alzheimer's disease by half. According to Grant, an additional 50 percent reduction in Alzheimer's risk was observed in people who commit to diets with low meat consumption such as India's.
Traditional Indian foods include the cuisines of Bengali, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Mughlai, Punjabi, Rajasthani, and South Indian, Cultural India listed. All these cuisines are primarily vegetarian and are loaded with spices, with sweet and spicy as its most dominant flavors. Indian cuisines' high vegetable content can also help people lose weight effectively, TheHealthSite reported.
Reducing meat consumption can lower people's risk of various diseases such as cancer types, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and chronic kidney disease, Grant noted. Fried food and fast food also ups the risk of Alzheimer's. Experts said eating fried food should not go over more than once a week to protect brain health, CBS News reported.
Turmeric, a spice and medicinal herb, is also widely used in Indian cuisine and is considered as one of the superfoods out there. Turmeric contains a compound called curcumin, an anti-inflammatory agent and a powerful antioxidant that can fight serious diseases and disorders such as diabetes, heart ailments, cancer, and yes, even Alzheimer's disease and depression, according to Authority Nutrition.
How exactly does turmeric's curcumin content prevents Alzheimer's? The brain disorder constitutes the buildup of protein tangles or Amyloid plaques, which are harmful to the brain's neurons.
Curcumin is said to be efficient in clearing these Amyloid plaques away. If studied properly, there's a huge chance that curcumin can slow down or reverse the progression of Alzheimer's disease in people.
More than five millions Americans currently have Alzheimer's disease, according to the Alzheimer's Association. The disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.
