Review Article
Dietary Patterns Associated with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Chronic Disease Risk: A Review
Gardener S1,2, Rainey-Smith SR1,2, Keogh JB3, Mathieson SL2 and Martins RN1,2
1Centre of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease Research and Care, School of Medical Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia
2Sir James McCusker Alzheimer’s, Research Unit (Hollywood Private Hospital), Perth, Australia
3School of Pharmacy and Medical, Sciences and Sansom Institute for Health Research, Division of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
- Corresponding Author:
- Ralph Martins
Suite 22, Hollywood Medical Centre
85 Monash Avenue, Nedlands
Western Australia, 6009 Australia
Tel: +61-8-9347-4200
Fax: +61-8-9347-4299
E-mail: ralph.n.martins@gmail.com
Received date: February 25, 2013; Accepted date: March 05, 2013; Published date: March 23, 2013
Citation: Gardener S, Rainey-Smith SR, Keogh JB, Mathieson SL, Martins RN (2013) Dietary Patterns Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Chronic Disease Risk: A Review. J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism S10:005. doi:10.4172/2161-0460.S10-005
Copyright: © 2013 Gardener S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The world’s population is growing older due to improved healthcare and nutrition. As a result, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) prevalence is rapidly increasing. The focus of the current research climate is shifting from understanding AD pathology and diagnosis to primary prevention and intervention strategies. Diet represents one potential intervention strategy accessible to all. Accumulating evidence suggests diet plays a major role in risk and development of AD and AD-related chronic diseases of the periphery like cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes. This paper reviews studies that have explored the relationship between “a priori” dietary patterns, AD and AD-related chronic disease risk. The dietary patterns we will review are the healthy eating index, healthy diet indicator, recommended food score, and the Mediterranean diet (MeDi). Our review of the literature suggests a generally positive association between healthy diet patterns, AD and AD-related chronic disease risk; however the magnitude of the protective effect is modest in many studies. Consequently, we can only confidently conclude that the MeDi is associated with reduced AD risk, and further studies on the remaining indices need to be carried out. It is our opinion that a combination of dietary scores could predict overall dietary quality and chronic disease risk to a greater extent than one score individually. Analysis in multi-ethnic cohorts, investigating combinations of scores must be completed before firm conclusions can be reached on the ideal combination of scores. Obtaining further insight into the association between dietary patterns, AD and AD-related chronic disease risk may help in prioritizing public health efforts and provide a stronger basis for recommendations to improve dietary patterns.