Podcast: What is the MIND Diet and How Does it Protect Your Brain?

Dr. Fink: Your brain is burning calories at a much higher rate than your muscles are. All of these vitamins and nutrients people think are good for them to be a better runner or a better football player, your brain needs them even more in order to function normally, and also to prevent the consequences of aging.

Courtney: Welcome to Health Matters, your dose of the latest in health and wellness from NewYork-Presbyterian. I'm Courtney Allison.

This season on Health Matters, we're covering your health from A to Z, asking our experts to break down the health topics and wellness trends we're all curious about. Today, we're at M for the Mind Diet. Most of us wonder what we can do to sharpen our memory and protect our brains as we age. Today, we've got expert advice from Dr. Matthew Fink, who leads neurology at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Fink breaks down the Mind Diet and the key nutrients that help power our brains. He also shares how a healthy diet can help reduce risk for dementia and how our everyday choices can make a huge impact on our long-term health.

Dr. Fink, welcome to Health Matters.

Dr. Fink: Well, thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here.

Courtney: So, many people are worried about memory loss and dementia as they age. From your perspective, how much control do we actually have to protect our brains?

Dr. Fink: We have quite a bit of control, much more than most people think, and much of it is related to our health habits and our lifestyle. The research that's been done seems to indicate that with proper lifestyle interventions beginning in middle age, we can reduce the risk of getting dementia by 50%.

Courtney: Wow. So I'm excited to talk about these interventions. Could we start by focusing on the Mind Diet? What is the Mind Diet?

Dr. Fink: The Mind Diet is an acronym of two other diets that were studied in various population studies. The first is the Mediterranean diet, and the Mediterranean diet refers to the general diet that is adhered to by people living around the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France, Italy, Greece, North African countries. And their traditional diet, the Mediterranean diet, is lots of green leafy vegetables, fruits and vegetables of all different colors, protein derived predominantly from fish, lean poultry, very little red meat, and the addition of berries, nuts, and particularly a lot of olive oil instead of saturated fats. And we've known for a long time that people that adhere to the Mediterranean diet have a reduction in cardiovascular problems, reduction in heart attacks, reduction in stroke, and they live longer. They live longer than the average person. And then the other diet which was included in the Mind Diet is referred to as the DASH diet, and that was developed to help reduce high blood pressure through dietary interventions. And the main features of that is significant restriction of sodium, salt in diet, and restriction of saturated fats.

Courtney: It seems like green leafy vegetables and berries are emphasized in this diet. Could you share what it is about these foods that help protect our brain? Are there any specific nutrients that are helping us?

Dr. Fink: Green leafy vegetables have a large number of B vitamins. B vitamins are extremely important in terms of your healthy metabolism, and they're not stored. B vitamins are not stored in the body, so you have to ingest them all the time. And green leafy vegetables have lots of B vitamins. Uh, B1, B6 are very, very important. B12 is not in green leafy vegetables. B12 is in mostly red meats and certain kinds of beans. And so people that are on strictly vegetarian or vegan diets may become deficient in B12 and they need to take a supplement. The berries and the different colors of fruits are all antioxidants. Every color that you see in a fruit, whether it's green, red, yellow, orange, the colors are antioxidants, which are extremely healthy elements for your body's metabolism, and they probably have a major role in slowing down the aging process.

Courtney: Wow.

Dr. Fink: So, eating a variety of vegetables that have all different colors, what we refer to as eat the rainbow, will have a very beneficial effect in terms of slowing down the aging process.

Courtney: Is there anything else to share about this mix of nutrients and way of eating that protects the brain?

Dr. Fink: Vitamins that we're talking about are extremely important and essential for brain function. Most people think that the metabolism in the body is driven by muscle activity. It turns out that the part of your body that has the highest metabolic rate and burns up more calories than anything else 24 hours a day around the clock is your brain. Your brain is burning calories all the time at a much higher rate than your muscles are. And therefore, all of these vitamins and nutrients we're talking about which people think about are good for them to be a better runner or a better football player, your brain needs them even more. Your brain depends on getting all these nutrients in large quantities in order to function normally and also to prevent the consequences of aging.

Courtney: That's so interesting. In the research, it seems like some of these foods reduce oxidative stress and inflammation. Is that correct?

Dr. Fink: The different colors that you see in fruits and vegetables, those colors are chemicals that are antioxidants. They reduce what we refer to as oxidative stress, and they reduce inflammation. There's been a huge amount of research trying to develop medications that can do the same thing, and so far we have not found a medication that works as well as the proper food that we eat.

Courtney: So it sounds like whole foods are anti-inflammatory, so all these foods can help reduce inflammation.

Dr. Fink: Absolutely, yes. The brain is a dynamic living organism which is constantly burning up nutrients, producing toxic byproducts which have to be cleansed from the brain, and then producing healthy cellular function afterwards. And the brain can actually produce new brain cells under the proper circumstances.

Courtney: And what foods should we avoid?

Dr. Fink: Number one, reduce the amount of salt. Eliminate as much salt as possible in your diet. Whatever food is brought to you, don't add salt. The second thing to eliminate is sugar. Eliminate sugary foods, sugary drinks, and that includes artificial sweeteners. They are chemicals, and those chemicals are bad for you. We want to avoid fried foods of all types, 'cause when you fry food, whatever kind of oil you're using increases your risk of getting atherosclerosis and other problems like that. And then the last thing is junk food of all varieties. When you go into a grocery store, you've got aisles and aisles filled with bags of ultra processed junk food. Try to avoid that as much as you can.

Courtney: So switching gears a little, you had shared with me that the American Heart Association also recently released some new guidelines for healthy eating, and it seemed very similar to what's in the MIND diet. So I'm wondering if a lot of these things we're speaking about with diet, does it also have to do with reduced vascular risk? These diets also seem heart-healthy.

Dr. Fink: Yes, it does. The MIND diet has multiple benefits. We're talking about prevention of cognitive impairment or dementia. Yes, it can prevent that, but it also reduces your risk of having a stroke and a heart attack. So you get three benefits by adhering to a healthy diet like the MIND diet, which can improve your health, improve your well-being as you get older, and e- extend your life. The other most important risk factor for stroke is also a major risk factor for dementia, and that's high blood pressure as an independent risk factor.

Courtney: What kind of research has been done on the MIND diet? What are the studies showing?

Dr. Fink: There were a number of studies. Some of them were population studies over several decades, and that's where it really was demonstrated to be beneficial over a long period of time. The studies that I like to look at are based on a four-generation study that was done Framingham, Massachusetts. It was referred to as the Framingham Study. It started in the 1950s and continues to the present day. And they went through risk factors for cardiovascular disease for the entire population that lived in Framingham, Massachusetts, and they demonstrated in the third generation a dramatic reduction in heart disease, stroke, and dementia in the third generation that used the dietary interventions we're talking about. It wasn't specifically the MIND diet. They didn't call it that, but it was quite similar to the MIND diet. The Framingham Study, as well as many other studies, look at brain shrinkage, or refer to it as brain atrophy, as a function of aging and neurodegeneration. We believe that if we do an intervention early in life that will be beneficial, then it will reduce the amount of brain shrinkage that occurs.

Courtney: Do small changes count? How consistent do we need to be to see these improvements in our brain health?

Dr. Fink: Small changes count, and I think it's always good to start small and do this one step at a time. If you try to do a drastic change in your diet, you probably will not succeed. It's too difficult. One of the smartest things we could all do is start doing more of our own food preparation and cooking at home. One of the characteristics of the Mediterranean diet is that in that part of the world, dining together with the family was a major event. So it wasn't just the food that they were eating, it was also the family and social interaction. So when a group gets together to dine together rather than eating alone or eating in your office or eating in front of the television set, that social interaction also has a great benefit for your brain.

Courtney: What are some other lifestyle habits that could help us protect our brains?

Dr. Fink: The most important thing you can do for yourself as you get older is to increase your physical exercise. It turns out that exercising your muscles has a direct effect on your brain health. Your muscles release a chemical into the bloodstream when you exercise that goes directly to your brain and improves brain function and can even stimulate the growth of new brain cells.

Courtney: Wow.

Dr. Fink: And then the last of the most important things is getting good sleep at night. When you are sleeping, your brain is clearing out all of the waste products that accumulated during the day. It's an extremely important function, and if you don't get enough sleep, your brain will not be successful at clearing all of that out, and it has a long-term consequence of causing brain harm and an increased risk of getting dementia. People who have long-term sleep problems have an increased risk of getting Alzheimer's disease and other kinds of disorders like that.

Courtney: So you've shared so much with us today about how to protect our brains. Any parting message for listeners looking to protect their brain health?

Dr. Fink: Part of the message I'm trying to get across is for people not to get too hung up on using a diet. I think it's easier to focus on eliminating what's really bad for you and adding in things that are good for you. You can have a great influence on your long-term health and happiness by taking care of yourself, and you have more control over this than most people think.

Courtney: Dr. Fink, thank you so much. That is great advice, very encouraging. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing all this wisdom about protecting our brain health.

Dr. Fink: You're very welcome.

Courtney: Our many thanks to Dr. Matthew Fink. I'm Courtney Allison.

Health Matters is a production of NewYork-Presbyterian. The views shared on this podcast solely reflect the expertise and experience of our guests. To learn more about Dr. Fink's work with patients, check out the show notes.

NewYork-Presbyterian is here to help you stay amazing at every stage of your life. Join us next time when we talk about how to manage night sweats and other effects of perimenopause. That's in two weeks right here on Health Matters. So you don't miss it, be sure to follow and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.