Mediterranean Diet can Aid People With Multiple Sclerosis

Can the Mediterranean diet help people with multiple sclerosis maintain their cognitive abilities?

Highlights:

The Mediterranean diet comprises fruits, vegetables, seafood, legumes, and healthy fats
It excludes any form of dairy, meat, and saturated fatty acids
This diet helps people with multiple sclerosis improve their memory and thinking skills

People with multiple sclerosis (MS) who follow a Mediterranean diet may have a lower risk of problems with memory and thinking skills than those who do not follow the diet. The Mediterranean diet emphasizes vegetables, legumes, fruits, seafood, and healthy fats like olive oil while limiting dairy products, meats, and saturated fatty acids.

Multiple Sclerosis and Mediterranean Diet

"It’s exciting to see that we may be able to help people living with MS maintain better cognition by eating a Mediterranean diet," said study author Ilana Katz Sand, MD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, New York, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "Cognitive difficulties are very common in MS, and they often get worse over time, even with treatment with disease-modifying therapies. People living with MS are very interested in ways they can be proactive from a lifestyle perspective to help improve their outcomes."

The study involved 563 participants with MS. Participants filled out a questionnaire to indicate how closely they adhered to the Mediterranean diet. Based on their responses, they were given a score ranging from 0 to 14, with greater ratings given to those who adhered to the diet more closely.

Quiz on Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet, which most people find tasty, is also a very healthy diet. Here are some questions that you will be able to answer if you are familiar with the Mediterranean diet.

‘A Mediterranean diet can lower the risk of problems related to thinking and memory in people with multiple sclerosis.’

The subjects were then separated into four groups depending on their diet scores, with the lowest group scoring zero to four and the highest scoring nine or more.

Participants also underwent three examinations to investigate their reasoning and memory abilities. Cognitive impairment was defined as scores in the fifth percentile or lower on two or three of the tests.

Cognitive disabilities affected 108 people or 19% of the total.

What are the Key Components of Mediterranean Diet?
The key component of Mediterranean diet is consuming greater amounts of plant based foods. Eat almonds, cashews, pistachios and walnuts as they contain high amounts of unsaturated fat.

The researchers discovered that persons who adhered more closely to the Mediterranean diet had a 20% lower risk of cognitive impairment than those who did not.

The lowest diet score group had 43 of 133 persons, or 34%, with cognitive impairment. Whereas, the highest diet score group had 13 of 103 people or 13%.

Effect of Mediterranean Diet or Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Small-For-Gestational-Age (SGA) Birth Weights
The risk for small-for-gestational-age (SGA) birth weights in newborns might be curbed down by the interventions like the Mediterranean diet or mindfulness-based stress reduction.

Those with progressive MS, in which the disease continuously worsens, had a stronger association than those with relapsing-remitting MS, in which the disease flares up and then goes into remission.

Moreover, Katz Sand observed, the results were the same after researchers meticulously controlled for other factors that could potentially increase the risk of cognitive impairment, such as socioeconomic status, smoking, body mass index, high blood pressure, and exercise.

Mediterranean Pattern

"Among health-related factors, the level of dietary alignment with the Mediterranean pattern was by far the strongest predictor of people’s cognitive scores and whether they met the study criteria for cognitive impairment," Katz Sand said.

Green Mediterranean Diet may Help Repair Age-Related Brain Damages
Rich sources of plant micronutrients called polyphenols in the green Mediterranean diet may help overcome brain damages through their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Longer studies that track people over time as well as well-designed interventional clinical trials, she said, are needed to corroborate the findings. One disadvantage of the study was that tests were only given once.

Source-Medindia