New method advances dietary guidelines for brain health

Bern: In a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, researchers have developed a method to reconcile diverse data on dietary patterns and cognitive health, aiding in understanding dementia risk factors.

The study addresses inconsistencies in individual studies' findings on diets like DASH and Mediterranean.

These studies vary in methodology, hindering conclusive dietary guidelines.

The approach involves pooling participant data from US and European studies, harmonising it for comparability.

Criteria include adult participants above 35, cognitively healthy at study outset, with diet and cognitive assessments.

Exposures include diets like the Mediterranean pattern, assessed through food frequency questionnaires.

Data on food groups will be harmonised, alongside cognitive measures and confounding factors like lifestyle and demographics. Techniques like confirmatory factor analysis ensure measurement equivalence.

This protocol facilitates individual participant data meta-analysis, aiming to clarify diet-cognition associations.

The method offers a systematic approach to navigate study heterogeneity, contributing to nuanced dietary recommendations for cognitive health.