After all, it’s just a popular belief: a taste for cheese seems to reduce the risk of dementia.
There is still no cure for dementia, but there is a list of factors that can influence the risk: exercise, diet, tobacco, alcoholic beverages…
A new study, in Nutrientsnow adds the cheese.
Scientists analyzed 7,914 people aged 65 and over. Half reported eating cheese at least once a week, while the other half said they didn’t eat it at all.
The health of these participants was monitored for three years. Of the cheese-eating group, 134 people developed dementia; Among those who abstained from cheese, 176 developed dementia.
While this isn’t a huge variation, and shows an association rather than cause and effect, it adds to what we already know about diet and dementia – and how eating habits relate to overall physical and mental health.
“These conclusions are consistent with previous observational evidence linking the Dairy consumption for cognitive health”, write researchers from Niimi University in Japan, cited by .
The researchers took into account several factors that may influence the risk of dementia, including age, sex, education level and income.
In a secondary analysis, healthy eating was also controlled: those who didn’t eat cheese tended to have less healthy dietswhich can contribute to the association. This relationship was less strong in this analysis, but continued to be significant.
Benefits of cheese
As Science Alert writes, cheese contains nutrients known to help brain health, for example, including vitamin K.
It is also rich in beneficial bacteria for the intestine – having several previous studies found .
There is also strong evidence that fermented dairy foods like cheese are good for the heart; and heart health is something that has long been thought to be important in dementia risk.
The statistics are not yet strong enough to suggest that a regular cheese snack is guaranteed to ward off dementia, but the indications are that it may help: “Additional research is needed to clarify relationships, cheese subtypes and underlying mechanisms,” warn the researchers.
