As the world becomes a super-aged society, cognitive decline is public health problems that are increasing rapidly. A healthy diet has great potential for maintaining cognitive health. A diet that could delay the onset of neurodegenerative diseases has been developed: the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet, a hybrid form of the Mediterranean diet and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. In this review, the effects of the MIND diet on improving cognitive function, including memory, are summarized. In most studies, the higher the adherence to the MIND diet, the higher the cognitive function evaluation score, and the lower the incidence of dementia. This is because of the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects of the major nutritional components of the MIND diet: folate, carotenoids, polyphenols, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Adherence to the MIND diet, containing various bioactive food ingredients, is related to cognitive improvement in the elderly population.
Keywords: Bioactive food ingredients; Cognitive impairment; Dementia; MIND diet; Super-aged society.
© The Korean Society of Food Science and Technology 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.