Rotterdam Study — MIND/Mediterranean diet and the risk of dementia
In plain English
The Rotterdam Study tracked diet and dementia in thousands of older Dutch adults, using dietary records from both the early 1990s and around 2010. Higher adherence to the MIND diet (a Mediterranean-DASH hybrid emphasising leafy greens, berries, nuts and olive oil) was associated with lower dementia risk in the first years of follow-up — but the link faded over longer periods. The authors read that fade as a warning that part of the apparent benefit may be reverse causation, with early, undiagnosed dementia changing how people eat.
Why it matters
Higher MIND-diet adherence was linked to lower dementia risk — but the association weakened over longer follow-up.
Informs: Alzheimer's
Provenance
- Design
- Prospective cohort
- Sample size (n)
- 5,375
- Follow-up
- 12 years
- Peer-reviewed
- Yes
- Replications
- 2
- Funding
- Public / academic
- Funders
- Erasmus MC, Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw)
- Institutions
- Erasmus MC University Medical Center
decades.plus score
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Caveats
Observational, and the authors themselves stress that the attenuating association points to possible reverse causality and residual lifestyle confounding. Diet was self-reported by questionnaire, in some cases decades before diagnosis.
