Healthy Plant-Based Diet Linked to Slower Cognitive Decline in Older African Americans

A healthy plant-based diet is linked to slower declines in memory and thinking in older African American adults, a Chicago study has found. The top fifth showed slower decline in overall cognition, perceptual speed and episodic memory than the bottom fifth.

Dr. Xiaoran Liu and colleagues at Rush University Medical Center analyzed 3,337 participants in the Chicago Health and Aging Project, 60% of them African American, scoring diets on healthy and unhealthy plant-based indexes and tracking repeated cognitive tests. The study is published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

African American adults face about twice the dementia risk of white adults, so the result matters. No link was seen in white participants, and less healthy plant-based diets showed no benefit in either group. The study is observational. Preliminary results were presented at an American Heart Association meeting in March.

It's not that the diet doesn't work on white people. It just had a greater impact on African Americans.

That is Dr. Liu, speaking at the time of the preliminary results, as reported by Nutrition Insight. The authors conclude that a healthy plant-based diet was associated with slower decline in global cognition, perceptual speed and episodic memory in African American adults.

It follows the CARDIA study that linked a plant-centered diet in young adulthood to 52% lower cardiovascular risk and the estimate that more beans, whole grains and nuts could add a decade to your life.

Beans and greens for a sharper mind in later life.