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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Alzheimer's patients who follow a strict Mediterranean diet live longer than those who eat a Western diet.
Researchers who followed 192 people over about four and a half years, comparing those who most closely adhered to the Mediterranean diet with those who least closely adhered to it, found a 76-percent reduced risk of dying in the top group. Those people lived about four years longer, on average. People who fell into middle ground -- moderately adhering to the diet -- lived about a year longer than those who least closely adhered to the diet.
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Researchers report their study confirms results from previous investigations, which have linked the diet to a lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease among healthy people and a lower risk of death overall.
The typical Mediterranean diet is rich in vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals, fish and monounsaturated fatty acids, and includes a mild to moderate amount of alcohol. The diet is associated with a lower intake of saturated fat, dairy products, meat and poultry.
In an accompanying editorial, James E. Galvin, M.D., M.P.H., from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., writes the study shows how dietary changes over the past century are impacting our health.
He writes, "The 'discovery' that diet adherence may provide protective benefits across a number of chronic diseases may lead to increased understanding of environmental and social adaptations that have occurred in the transition from 'hunter-gatherer' diets to diets and lifestyles more common to Western societies These changes have been linked to an increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease and may, in part, lead to increased incidence of other chronic diseases of the older adult."
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: Neurology, 2007;69:1084-1093, 1072-1073
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