Try the MIND Diet
Try the MIND Diet
Your mind has everything to do with how you lose weight and keep it off. It also has much to do with keeping our brains working at their best, especially as we age. It’s not a “brain food” diet, but what researchers have named the Mediterranean/DASH-Intervention for–Neurodegenerative-Delay.
Although it sounds like a lot to take in, it’s actually a very simple concept. DASH stands for Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension and researchers at Rush University Medical Center (funded by the National Institute on Aging) that a mix of DASH and Mediterranean style meals can effectively reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers carefully tracked the dietary habits and cognitive ability of almost a thousand adults over a nine-year period of time. They found significant differences of those in the group who followed the MIND diet.
The MIND diet encourages the consumption of such foods as nuts, berries, fish, olive oil, wine and green leafy veggies. The group who followed the MIND diet plan enjoyed a 53 percent lower chance of contracting Alzheimer’s.
Butter and/or margarine, sugary and processed foods and red meat should be avoided, but not banned. Those who cut down on these foods significantly enjoyed a 35 percent less chance of suffering from Alzheimer’s.
The MIND diet uses two of the best diet plans, Mediterranean and DASH, and focuses on the foods in those diets that explicitly affect brain health. Foods such as red meat, cheese, butter and margarine, fried foods and sweets should be avoided, but you don’t have to completely give them up to get great results.
You can expect to see more research on comparisons of those who follow this diet plan rigorously, those who follow it modestly and those who eat very little of the foods on the plan.
Although the MIND plan doesn’t necessarily target weight loss, you will probably lose weight simply based on the fact that you’ll be consuming lower calorie foods. Combining the MIND diet with a moderate amount of exercise delivers even better results for overall health.
