Let’s practice the Mediterranean diet! Meal plans from different parts of the world are gaining a lot of buzz for their health benefits.
A Japanese diet rich in fish, tea and soy may prevent brain atrophy and reduce the risk of dementia, according to a new study.
Researchers at Japan’s National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology conducted brain scans of two groups of Japanese people eating different diets.
One group ate a traditional Japanese diet, and the other group ate a Western diet rich in red meat, alcohol, and high-fat foods such as pasta.
Fish is a popular protein source in the island nation of Japan, and is abundant.
Green tea is a traditional Japanese diet
The scans were carried out twice over two years with the aim of measuring how much brain tissue each group lost over time.
The results showed that women in the Japanese diet group had, on average, lower levels of brain atrophy, or atrophy, which is a hallmark of dementia, compared to women with a Westernized diet. It has been found.
The discovery comes after Japan’s lifestyle attracted increasing attention after it was revealed that the country contains one of the world’s five “blue zones.”– A region with lower rates of chronic disease and higher life expectancy than other parts of the world.
According to Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones Solution, only 6.7 percent of people over 65 living in Japan’s Okinawa prefecture will develop dementia.
This is nearly half the rate in the United States (approximately 11.3%).
What sets Blue Zones apart from other parts of the world is the lifestyle, including the diet, of the people who live there. Other regions highlighted were Greece, Costa Rica, and Italy.
“Following a traditional Japanese diet may also be beneficial for brain health, and is better for brain health than a typical Western diet,” study authors from the National Center for Longevity Medicine said. said Xu Zhang, a nutritional epidemiology researcher at the research center, and Giovanni Sala, a psychology lecturer. Professors from the University of Liverpool contributed to this conversation.it was Published in March Nutrition Journal.
Seaweed, or nori, appears in the Japanese diet as a dish and snack.
Yuzu is a popular citrus fruit, and researchers emphasized it in the Japanese diet
Despite the positive signs in Okinawa, Japan as a whole actually has a higher rate of dementia than the United States.
For example, as of the last official measurement in 2014, the national dementia prevalence among people 65 and older was 15 percent in Japan and 11 percent in the United States.
This may be related to the fact that Japan has the highest proportion of elderly people in the world. Elderly people make up about 29.1 percent of the country’s total population. In the United States, older adults make up approximately 17.3 percent of the population.
The study authors defined the traditional Japanese diet as being based on fish, shellfish, rice, soybeans, green tea, citrus fruits, pickled vegetables, mushrooms, and seaweed. In contrast, Western diets included refined carbohydrates such as noodles, high-fat foods, soft drinks, and alcohol.
It is generally believed that the Japanese diet has protective effects, as it is rich in vitamins, polyphenols, phytochemicals, and good fatty acids, which help fight inflammation in the body.
Preventing long-term inflammation may help lubricate the brain and keep neurons working in the long term, the study authors wrote.
Study authors focused on shiitake mushrooms
Japanese pickles are made using more salt than vinegar.
The study tested 1,636 Japanese adults between the ages of 40 and 89 to investigate their effects on other diets. The authors gave them disposable cameras to take pictures of their meals and asked them to keep food diaries recording everything they ate and drank. .
They also recorded genetic medical history and looked at other lifestyle factors such as smoking habits, physical activity, and pre-existing health conditions. In this way, we were able to adjust the data to ensure that the differences observed at the end of the study were caused by dietary changes rather than other factors.
Over two years, 589 participants ate a traditional Japanese diet, 697 ate a traditional Western diet, and 350 ate a primarily plant-based diet.
The final and most important aspect of their study was taking regular brain scans (called MRIs) of the participants. Researchers monitored each participant for a loss of brain tissue, clinically known as age-related brain atrophy, as this is a marker of dementia, the authors write. There is.
In conclusion, the authors found that women who consumed a Japanese diet had significantly less brain atrophy than those who consumed a Western diet. For men, there was no difference between the two groups.
“Interestingly, this effect was only evident in women,” Zhu wrote.
The authors offer two possible explanations for this effect. One is that the Japanese diet is rich in magnesium and phytoestrogens, which are more protective for women than for men.
Takikomi gohan is a common side dish in the Japanese diet.
Phytoestrogens are compounds similar to the female hormone estrogen, found mainly in plants, and are sometimes called phytoestrogens.
Previous research from the Institute on Aging and Alzheimer’s Research supports this idea, saying increasing intake of phytoestrogens may help women combat the cumulative effects of stress in the body. ing.
Second, the authors found that men were more likely than women to deviate from the traditional Japanese diet. Therefore, they are consuming more Western foods such as noodles and sake, which may mean they have less of a protective effect from Japanese food.
In any case, there are certain parts of the Japanese diet that we recommend incorporating that can be found in other Blue Zone diets as well. These include increasing intake of vegetables and fish, and reducing red meat, the authors write.
“Incorporating elements of the traditional Japanese diet and incorporating foods such as fish, seafood, soybeans, miso, seaweed, and shiitake mushrooms can not only improve cognitive function, but also improve overall health. “Possible,” the researchers said.
