Healthy diets may slow down heart and brain disease in older adults

Older people who follow a healthy diet have a slower development of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease and dementia. Such diets prioritize consuming vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, legumes, and unsaturated fats, while reducing the intake of sweets, red and processed meat, and butter or margarine.

The research notes that healthy diets did not seem to impact diseases related to muscles and bones. The team followed 2,473 older Swedish adults for 15 years, examining four dietary patterns. 

Meanwhile, a pro-inflammatory diet accelerated the accumulation of such diseases. These diets focus on red and processed meat, refined grains, and sweetened beverages, with lower consumption of vegetables, tea, and coffee.

”Our results show how important diet is in influencing the development of multimorbidity in ageing populations,” says co-first author Adrián Carballo-Casla, postdoctoral researcher at the Aging Research Centre, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.

Focus on diet quality

The Karolinska Institutet research team investigated adherence to three healthy dietary patterns — MIND, the Alternative Healthy Eating Index, and the Alternative Mediterranean Diet. The MIND diet combines the Mediterranean and DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, designed for brain health and reducing dementia risk. 

The Alternative Healthy Eating Index measures adherence to dietary guidelines that reduce the risk of chronic diseases in general, and the Alternative Mediterranean Diet is a modified version of the Mediterranean diet adapted to Western eating habits.

A higher adherence to one of these diets was associated with a lower annual rate of chronic disease accumulation.

The fourth dietary pattern investigated is the Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Index, which estimates a diet’s inflammatory risks. People with a higher adherence to this diet showed a faster rate of chronic disease accumulation. 

The healthy diets focus on vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, legumes, and unsaturated fats, with low intake of sweets, red and processed meat, and butter/margarine.“Our findings support diet quality as a modifiable risk factor for multimorbidity progression in older adults, with possible implications for dietary guidelines, public health strategies, and clinical practice,” note the researchers. 

The team says their next research step is identifying dietary recommendations with the most significant impact on longevity. They also aim to determine which groups of older adults, based on age, gender, psychosocial background, and chronic diseases, may benefit the most from these diets. 

Healthy aging research

The research is part of the Swedish National study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen, an ongoing longitudinal community-based cohort of randomly sampled adults over 60 in Stockholm, Sweden. 

This program collected dietary information through a food frequency questionnaire three times during the research. The researchers estimated portion sizes through photographs and calculated daily energy and nutrient intakes through food composition tables. 

The team collected data on multimorbidity up to 15 years after the start of the program, obtaining sociodemographic and clinical information through interviews and questionnaires. Physicians assessed chronic diseases at every data collection, looking at cardiovascular, neuropsychiatric, and musculoskeletal diseases. 

Earlier research on similar eating patterns also supports the potential healthy aging benefits of dietary patterns rich in fruit, vegetables, and other plant-based foods, with a moderate inclusion of healthy animal-based foods. 

US scientists have identified a specific nutrient profile to slow brain aging, with nutrients found in the Mediterranean diet. This nutritional lifestyle has previously been linked with healthy brains and hearts, inspiring the development of heart-healthy supplements.