Live Longer With The Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean diet isn’t a fad weight-loss diet. It’s what millions of people have been eating for thousands of years. It’s true that you can lose weight on this diet. You can also gain weight on it, if you, say, fling about the olive oil, binge on pasta, and finish up with a few pieces of baklava. But, on the average, people eating the Mediterranean diet live longer and live healthier than most others. I'm sure they live longer and healthier than those eating a fast-food American diet with lots of munchies. And people eating the Mediterranean diet are less likely to get Alzheimer’s.

Learn more about living longer with the Mediterranean diet from my TOUR THE SITES website. Scroll down its left margin to Diets, Nutrition. You’ll find there much information on healthy eating – including, of course, the Mediterranean diet.

Alzheimer’s And The Mediterranean Diet

In 2006 researchers reported on a study of 2,258 older adults in New York. They scored the food intake of the participants from 0-9, depending on how near they came to the Mediterranean diet. The higher the score, the nearer to the Mediterranean diet.

Compared with those with the lowest scores, those with middle scores were 15 percent less likely to have Alzheimer's disease, and those with the highest scores were 40 percent less likely to have Alzheimer's disease.

In 2008 researchers in Italy reported on pooled data from 12 international studies on the Mediterranean diet. They found that those who closely followed the Mediterranean diet were

– 9 percent less likely to die from heart disease or other cardiovascular problems;

– 6 percent less likely to develop cancer or die from it;

– 13 percent less likely to have Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease.

For Those Who Already Have Alzheimer’s

The Mediterranean diet helps here too. In 2007 researchers reported on a study that followed 192 people with Alzheimer’s disease in New York for an average of four and a half years. “Alzheimer's patients who adhered to the diet to a moderate degree lived an average 1.3 years longer than those people who least adhered to the diet. And those Alzheimer's patients who followed the diet very religiously lived an average four years longer,” said study author Nikos Scarmeas, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

What Exactly Is The Mediterranean Diet?

According to WEB MD: the Mediterranean diet includes high intake of certain foods:

– Fruits including apples, oranges, orange or grapefruit juice, peaches, apricots, plums, and bananas;

– Vegetables including tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, raw or cooked carrots, corn, yams, spinach, collard greens, and yellow squash;

– Legumes including peas, lima beans, lentils, and beans;

– Cereals including cold breakfast cereals, white or dark bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes (baked, broiled, or mashed);

– Olive oil and other oils with monounsaturated fatty acids.

The Mediterranean diet also includes moderate amounts of fish of all types, low intake of meat and poultry, low to moderate amounts of dairy products, and a moderate amount of alcohol (usually wine served at meals).


Some versions of the Mediterranean diet add moderate amounts of lean chicken in addition to the fish – an easier version for many to follow.

Avoid Alzheimer's With A Fit Brain

BRAIN FITNESS is a burgeoning research field. It’s of great interest to people who would like to avoid Alzheimer’s by keeping their brains in top condition, but many younger people are also interested in the possibilities. If you like to keep up with the latest research, SHARP BRAINS has an excellent blog, and as you read the blog you’ll see the broad area that the term brain fitness now takes in. The blog recently featured the “Top 10 Brain Fitness And Cognitive Health Books.” These books contain fascinating material on new ways to apply the latest brain research.

One, an unusual weight control book, suggests that you can “Train Your Brain To Think Like A Thin Person.” Another trumpets, “How A New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential To Transform Ourselves.” And a third, with an odd sounding but interesting concept, tells us “How The New Science Of Gratitude Can Make You Happier.”

Sharp Brains’ Most Important Book of 2008

It’s Dr. Torkel Klingberg’s “The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload And The Limits Of Working Memory.” The book deals with the constant distractions of modern life, multitasking, and the magnificent overload of material now available online. (Which online overload I and many others are trying to trim by finding the best material on selected subjects.)

You'll find here a nice summary by Dr. Klingberg himself.

Prevent Alzheimer's With "Good" Cholesterol

We hear so much about the “bad” kind that we forget the good – that is, the HDL – cholesterol. Yet, in a study summarized in MED HEADLINES, researchers found “that a high level of HDL lowers the risk of heart attack, aids numerous biological processes, removes excess cholesterol from the bloodstream, helps nerve cells develop, and controls the production of beta-amyloid. Alzheimer’s disease patients have a build-up . . . of beta-amyloid.”

We find more evidence that good cholesterol staves off memory loss and dementia in the British Whitehall II study segment in which 3,673 British civil servants were analyzed regarding the effect of HDL on memory function as they got older. A key finding: At 55 years of age, participants with low levels of HDL were at 53% higher risk of impaired memory than those with high levels of HDL.

What Foods Are Rich in Good Cholesterol?

"Bad" cholesterol hangs out in popular foods like fatty meat and cheese. Good cholesterol is plentiful in olive and other vegetable oils, avocados, and nuts. (And, yes, the healthful qualities of the newly popular Mediterranean Diet have quite a bit to do with the good cholesterol in it.)

WEIGHT WATCHERS advocated a low-fat diet for years – until this information about good cholesterol came out. Now they advocate small amounts of olive oil, avocado, or nuts as part of a reducing diet. And, you know, when my husband and I tried that, we found that the little bit of oil left us feeling much more satisfied for much longer and kept us on our diet.

This excellent article by the MAYO CLINIC expands the good-cholesterol list with oatmeal and fish.

Healthy Recipes With Good Cholesterol

When I tried to find some healthy recipes for the kind of fish that is rich in omega-3s, even Google failed me. I kept hitting one earnest explanation of omega-3s after another, but no recipes . . . until I found MARTHA STEWART. She has some delicious ones.

I had no such problem with avocados. Avocado recipes abound, and here is the largest selection of good avocado recipes I found, at AVOCADO.ORG, of course.

Playing Strategy Games Keeps Elders Sharp

In research by the University of Illinois, 40 adults over 60 years old were divided into two groups. Half were asked to play a computer game called Rise of Nations, a role-playing game in which players build their own empires. Players build cities, feed and employ their people, maintain a military, and expand their territory.

According to the SHARP BRAINS BLOG, “As a group, the 'gamers' became significantly better – and faster – at switching between tasks as compared to the comparison group. Their working memory, as reflected in the tests, was also significantly improved and their reasoning ability was enhanced.”

In a second study, the researchers “found no comparable cognitive benefits for college students in their early 20s who played the same game for the same number of hours, regardless of whether they play videogames often or don't.”

Why Did Older Players Benefit More?

Professor A. F. Kramer, one of the researchers, explained it this way in the blog: “It seems clear that, as we age, our so-called crystallized abilities remain pretty stable, whereas the so-called fluid abilities decline. One particular set of fluid abilities are called executive functions, which deal with executive control, planning, dealing with ambiguity, prioritizing, multi-tasking. These skills are crucial to maintain independent living.

“In this study, . . . we showed that playing a strategy-based videogame (Rise of Nations Gold Edition) . . . transferred to untrained executive functions. We saw a significant improvement in task switching, working memory, visual short-term memory, and mental rotation. And some, but more limited, benefits in inhibition and reasoning.”

In short, complex strategy games are very, very good for older people’s brains.

It's Scary -- I'm Forgetting Things

When your information highway turns into an overgrown bicycle path, IT’S SCARY. I know, I’ve been there. I kept complaining to my doctor about my memory. I asked her if I should take ginkgo to help it, but she thought that would have a bad effect on my blood pressure. And scientific research has since given the final word: ginkgo biloba does NOT prevent Alzheimer’s.
And an earlier scientific study indicated that ginkgo fails to help people’s memory, period.

Omega-3s Do Help Prevent Alzheimer’s

My doctor did recommend that I take omega-3 fatty acids, which are in fish oil and flax seed oil. And recent research has confirmed that there is an anti-Alzheimer’s mechanism in fish oil. My husband and I are not that fond of fish, and we have been taking the fish oil capsules instead. They’re cheaper than fish too.

Watch Your Wallet!

Watch your wallet when it comes to the fad of putting omega-3s into all sorts of products. I saw an ad for Kellog’s Live Bright™ Health Bars, with omega-3 fatty acids, which bars cost more than $4 each from Amazon, probably still more if you go to a “brain games” house party. The bars contain only 100 mg. of omega-3s. One inexpensive fish oil capsule has 1,000 mg. Three ounces of canned salmon has 1,200. These health bars do have the advantage of dark chocolate, which is not only good for you but tastes extremely delicious. And, hey, if you don’t mind the cost, get a bunch. But do read the article in USA Today first.

Avoid Alzheimer's With Brain Games

I call it “the research that launched a thousand websites.”

The results in 2006 of the “ACTIVE" Study started a big Internet buzz and a multitude of websites. Plus giving us the idea that having fun with brain games may prevent Alzheimer’s.

The ACTIVE Study divided 2,802 normal subjects over age 65 into four groups. The memory group learned strategies for remembering word lists and sequences. The reasoning group learned strategies for finding the pattern in a letter or word series and identifying the next item in a series. The speed-of-processing group learned ways to identify an object on a computer screen at increasingly brief exposures. The fourth group received no memory training.

Can You Train A Brain?

Immediately after the initial training, 87 percent of the speed-training group, 74 percent of the reasoning group and 26 percent of the memory group showed improvement in the skills taught.

Do Brains Stay Trained?

And after five years, people in each memory-skills group performed better on tests than people in the control group. The reasoning-training and speed-training groups who received booster training had the greatest benefit.

The Internet responded to this news with an avalanche of websites featuring “brain games.” Some are free, others are quite expensive. If you’d like a good selection of free memory helps and games and a review of the ones that cost, try my TOUR THE SITES website. Go to the 1000 BEST SITES in the lefthand margin and click on Brain Games.

Do Statin Drugs Help Prevent Alzheimer's?

We know that statin drugs lower a person’s cholesterol, but do they also help people avoid dementia and Alzheimer’s? Over the past several years, research results have varied. But a study that came out in the summer of 2008 found that “people at high risk for dementia who took cholesterol-lowering statins are half as likely to develop dementia as those who do not take statins,” reports Science Daily.

Are Some Statins Better At Preventing Alzheimer’s?

In 2007, Boston University researcher Benjamin Wolozin, MD, and colleagues analyzed the huge U.S. Veterans Affairs database, with detailed information on 4.5 million patients. According to the description in Web M.D., “some 727,000 of these patients took Zocor, about 54,000 took Lipitor, and about 54,000 took Mevacor.

“In patients over age 64, those who took Zocor were 54% less likely to get Alzheimer's disease and 49% less likely to get Parkinson's disease than were matched patients not taking statin drugs.”

“Those who took Lipitor were 9% less likely to get Alzheimer's disease, a finding that was not statistically significant. . . . Mevacor had no effect on risk of either Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease.”

It’s also encouraging to know that Zocor is available as a generic known as simvastatin, at a fraction of the cost of brand-name statins.

Research in this area is continuing, but statins are emerging as a promising adjunct for Alzheimer’s prevention.

Prevent Alzheimer's By Your Diet

An astonishing study from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine showed that subjects who drank fruit and vegetable juice three or more times per week cut their risk of Alzheimer’s by a whopping 76 percent, compared to those who drank juices less than once per week. Which research results suddenly made the simple act of drinking fruit or vegetable juice appear to be one of the best ways to avoid Alzheimer’s!

For the study, part of the Kame Project, the researchers identified 1,836 dementia-free subjects in the Seattle population, and collected information on their dietary consumption of fruit and vegetable juices. They then assessed cognitive function every two years for up to 10 years, coming up with the surprising results described above.

These particular Kame Project results, which were reported in 2006, sent researchers in new directions. They have resulted in further important discoveries about Alzheimer’s prevention – which discoveries will be covered in later posts.

Exercise Is A Prime Way To Avoid Alzheimer's

Plain, old-fashioned exercise is emerging as one of the best ways to avoid Alzheimer’s.

The Nurses’ Health Study, which interviewed 18,766 US women aged 70 to 81 years, found that those who walked at least 1.5 miles a week had the least thinking impairment. The researchers have been following the health and physical activity of these women since 1986 and have tested their thinking abilities over the years. And women who were more physically active had significantly less decline in their thinking abilities as they aged.

Two Miles A Day Did It For These Men

The Honolulu-Asia Aging Study had similar findings. They interviewed 2,257 men between 71 and 93 years of age. They found that men who walked two miles per day had half the risk of dementia, compared to those who walked less than a quarter mile per day. And Alzheimer’s is, of course, simply one form of dementia.

So exercise doesn’t only appear to “blow the cobwebs out” of our brains, as the saying goes. In the case of these research subjects it cut their risk of dementia in half!

What Are The Symptoms Of Alzheimer's?

How much forgetfulness is a natural part of aging, and how much is a sign that a person is sinking into dementia or its most-feared form, Alzheimer’s disease? The Fisher Center For Alzheimer’s Research has laid it all out for us on its website. You can see from the description that a certain amount of forgetfulness is a normal part of aging. In fact, a good rule of thumb is: if you have to search for a word but recall it after a bit, you’re simply a normal older person. If you tend to lose words and they never come back, you may have a problem.

You Can Give Your Memory A Boost

If you’d like to test your memory or learn some good techniques to improve your memory, you can find excellent material in the 1000 BEST SITES FOR FAMILIES AND SENIORS. These "1000 Best" sites are on my own Tour The Sites website. Just scroll down the site's lefthand column, click on Brain Games and then on Boost Your Memory.

Ways You Can Avoid Alzheimer's

People over the age of fifty-five tell pollsters they are more afraid of Alzheimer’s than of cancer. Yet scientific research is revealing numerous things you and I can do to prevent dementia and its most-feared form, Alzheimer’s disease. And this blog is devoted to telling people the many things scientists say we can do to stay sharp all our lives.

Most of us read items about preventing Alzheimer’s in magazines or newspapers, but researchers’ advice often mirrors the advice our mothers and doctors have been giving us all along. And the whole thing slides past us. You’ll find here, however, a COMPILATION of Alzheimer’s prevention items, all based in the scientific research, which compilation should be more memorable.

These ways of avoiding Alzheimer’s cover a wide range of activities: the way we eat, how much we exercise, and the way we take care of our health. I’ll report about all these ways to keep our minds sharp, along with the promising medical treatments starting to come out for those who already have the disease.