A new study has found that it's not just what you eat, but the foods you eat together in a sort of food "network" that may increase your risk for Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.
"People with dementia were more likely, when they ate processed meat, to accompany it with potatoes, and people without dementia were more likely to accompany meat with more diverse foods, including fruit and vegetables and seafood," said study author Cécilia Samieri, an epidemiologist from the University of Bordeaux in France.
"We found that more diversity in diet, and greater inclusion of a variety of healthy foods, is related to less dementia," she said.
The study was published Thursday in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study asked over 600 older people in France what they ate, then followed them for five years during regular medical checkups. At the end of that time, 209 of the group had developed dementia. When researchers looked at the foods they ate, there wasn't much difference in individual food choices. But there was a huge difference in how those without dementia had grouped their foods.
People with no signs of cognitive decline tended to group their foods into smaller, more diverse food "networks." Those choices typically included healthier foods, such as seafood, fruits and vegetables.
However, the 209 people who developed dementia were more likely to combine "highly processed meats such as sausages, cured meats and patés with starchy foods like potatoes, alcohol and snacks like cookies and cakes," Samieri said.
"In fact, we found differences in food networks that could be seen years before people with dementia were diagnosed," Samieri said.
