Dietary Diversity and Mild Cognitive Impairment in Middle-Aged and Older Chinese People: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The evidence concerning dietary diversity and cognitive function remains insufficient. Objective: To investigate the association of dietary diversity score (DDS) with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and cognitive performance in different domains. Methods: Data from The Lifestyle and Healthy Aging of Chinese Square Dancer Study was used in this study. DDS was constructed based on the intake frequencies of 9 food groups assessed by a validated food frequency questionnaire. MCI was diagnosed by Petersen’s criteria. A neuropsychological test battery was used to assess the performance on cognitive domains, and test scores were standardized to Z scores. Multiple linear regression models and logistic regression models were used to estimate the β and odds ratios and their 95% CIs, respectively. Results: Among 1,982 participants, the mean (SD) age was 63.37 (5.00) years, 1,778 (89.71%) were women, and 279 (14.08%) had MCI. Compared to the DDS quartile (0, 6], the multivariable-adjusted odds ratios (95% CI) were 0.74 (0.48, 1.15) for DDS quartile (6, 7], 0.65 (0.43, 0.97) for DDS quartile (7, 8], and 0.55 (0.37, 0.84) for DDS quartile (8, 9]. Furthermore, higher DDS was positively associated with better performance of cognitive domains, including global cognitive function (β= 0.20, 95% CI: 0.12, 0.30), episodic memory (β= 0.21, 95% CI: 0.07, 0.35), attention (β= 0.15, 95% CI: 0.03, 0.26), language fluency (β= 0.24, 95% CI: 0.10, 0.38), and executive function (β= – 0.24, 95% CI: – 0.38, – 0.10). Conclusions: This study indicated that higher DDS was associated with better cognitive function among middle-aged and older Chinese people.

Cognitive Function, Healthy Diet, and All-Cause Mortality among Chinese Older Adults: A Longitudinal Prospective Study

“…Among the individual lifestyle behaviors, we found that healthy diet showed stronger interaction with cognitive function on mortality risk than other lifestyle behaviors. The finding was supported by previous studies that good dietary diversity was associated with a reduced risk of cognitive impairment among elderly people [31,[44][45][46]. Even though the biological mechanism underlying the interaction was not clear, several plausible explanations have been proposed.…”

“…Even though the biological mechanism underlying the interaction was not clear, several plausible explanations have been proposed. First, good dietary diversity has been reported as a proxy indicator of nutrient adequacy [46] that can help reduce the burden of cognitive impairment [47,48]. Second, low dietary diversity is associated with enhanced oxidative stress, which would affect normal brain function and increase the risk of mild cognitive impairment [49,50].…”