Although modern medicine is IMPOTENT in restoring brain functionality, great progress has been made on the attenuation of degenerative ADVANCE and on the prevention of its onset; in addition to specific drugs, both statistics and the clinic have been able to highlight some essential components lifestyle and diet, responsible for:
- Preservation (secondary to family predispositions) of the CNS from Alzheimer's
- Slowing down of pathological progress and worsening
Note: obviously, if applied to a person suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the optimization of diet and lifestyle is NOT a proper cure but rather a preventive and palliative therapy for worsening dementia.
and "mental gymnastics" (anthological reading and pursuit of intellectual and managerial habits), constitute 2 primary elements against the onset and worsening of Alzheimer's disease.
Furthermore, by making a "nutritional history of affected and healthy people, an evident POSITIVE correlation was highlighted between: a diet rich in saturated or hydrogenated fatty acids and cholesterol, with precocious and progressive brain degeneration. On the contrary, a rich diet. of: dietary fiber (whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fresh fruit), antioxidants (B-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, selenium, polyphenols, etc.), phytosterols and polyunsaturated fatty acids (omega-3 family, omega-6 family, omega-9 family), seems to PROTECT from the onset of Alzheimer's.
Note how ALL the nutritional characteristics mentioned above perfectly reflect the key principles of the Mediterranean diet; the diet suitable for preventing and delaying the symptoms of Alzheimer's is therefore the same recommended to reduce cardio-vascular risk.
The Mediterranean diet for Alzheimer's can therefore boast the following beneficial effects:
- Slow down cognitive decline in the elderly
- Reduce the risk of mild cognitive decline (MCI), which is the intermediate stage between physiological decline and Alzheimer's dementia
- Reduce the risk of mild cognitive decline (MCI) leading to Alzheimer's disease proper.
At the moment it is not yet clear what are the preventive mechanisms of the Mediterranean diet against Alzheimer's disease, however, it is possible that the right food choices favor the moderation of triglycerides and cholesterol in the blood, as well as the maintenance of glycemia and " insulinemia within the right limits of normality; moreover, by virtue of the recent discoveries on the lipid up-take of nerve cells (which highlights how much dietary fats can contribute to the composition of neuronal membranes and myelin sheaths), it is possible to hypothesize that saturated and hydrogenated fats, the latter especially in configuration trans, negatively affect the maintenance of brain functions.
, frustration etc.).
Further investigations are awaited that will be able to more accurately assess and quantify the preventive and palliative role of the Mediterranean diet on Alzheimer's disease.
