Cheese, please?

Among the lifestyle modifications that can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and slow its progression is adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet. The MIND diet (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) is an amalgam of the standard Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) with the addition of a greater proportion of flavanol-containing nuts and berries. The MIND diet has been shown to reduce the risk of getting Alzheimer’s by up to 53%. That’s pretty impressive. It is the diet that I follow strictly, with one exception: cheese.  The MIND diet restricts cheese consumption to one serving per week. I love cheese. I almost always have a slice of cheese with my lunch, but I feel guilty about it. Then recently I found a paper published last year in Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease that reported dietary effects over a ten-year period on fluid intelligence (FI), a cognitive measure involving abstract problem-solving without prior knowledge, in 1,787 mid-to-late aged adult UK Biobank participants. Of forty-nine self-reported food types in this cohort, daily consumption of cheese best predicted a slower decline in the FI score. In other words, in this one study, cheese consumption actually seemed to slow progression of cognitive decline.  This is just one study, and it is not specific to Alzheimer’s, but it makes me feel less guilty about my daily slice of cheese.