WEDNESDAY, March 18, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Greater adherence to the Mediterranean-Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Diet Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet is associated with slower brain structural atrophy, according to a study published online March 17 in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
Hui Chen, Ph.D., from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China, and colleagues examined the associations of the MIND diet with long-term brain structural changes in a study involving 1,647 middle-aged and older individuals from the Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort. A validated food frequency questionnaire was used to calculate the MIND diet score. Brain imaging markers were acquired a median of three times between 1999 and 2019.
The researchers found that greater adherence to the MIND diet during a median follow-up of 12.3 years was associated with slower decline in total gray matter volume. There was an association seen for a 3-unit increase in the MIND diet score with a 0.279-cm3/year slower decline in total gray matter volume, which corresponded to a 20.1 percent attenuation in age-related change; this was equivalent to 2.5 years of reduced brain aging during follow-up. In addition, there was an association observed for higher MIND diet score with slower increases in lateral ventricular volume (−0.071 cm3/year), notably in the left lateral ventricle (−0.041 cm3/year), which reflected attenuation of 8.0 and 8.8 percent, respectively, in age-related changes, equivalent to about one year of delayed brain aging during follow-up.
"These findings reinforce the potential of the MIND diet as a brain-healthy dietary pattern and support its role in strategies aimed at slowing neurodegeneration in aging populations," the authors write.