MIND diet associated with better focus in school children: Study

The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet, which combines the Mediterranean diet with the heart-healthy Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, and the Healthy Eating Index - 2015 (HEI-2015), which is based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, were the two dietary patterns that were the subject of the new study.

We assessed how adherence to thesedietswas associated withchildrens attentional inhibition the ability to resist distracting stimuli and found that only the MIND diet was positively linked withchildrens performance on a task assessing attentional inhibition, said Shelby Keye, PhD, who performed the work as a doctoral student in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and will be an assistant professor there this fall.

This suggests that the MIND diet could have the potential to improvechildrenscognitive development, which is important for success in school.

Keye will present the findings atNUTRITION 2023, the annual flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition held July 22-25 in Boston.

Much like the DASH and Mediterraneandietson which it is based, the MIND diet emphasizes fresh fruit, vegetables, and legumes like beans, lentils, and peas. However, it also includes recommendations for specific foods, such as leafy greens and berries, which promotebrainhealth.

Although the MIND diet has been shown to have positive effects in adults, very few studies have been performed inchildren.

The new research used data collected in a previous cross-sectional study led by Naiman Khan, PhD, a professor of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The studys 85 participants ranged in age from 7 to 11 years old and completed a seven-day diet record from which the researchers calculated HEI-2015 and MIND diet scores.

To assess attentional inhibition, participants also completed a task that requires spatial attention and executive control with their reaction time and accuracy recorded. Children with neurological disorders such as ADHD or autism were excluded from the study to reduce confounding factors.

The researchers found that MIND diet scores but not HEI-2015 scores were positively related to study participants accuracy on the task, meaning that study participants who better adhered to the MIND diet performed better on the task. The researchers caution that although the study shows an association, an intervention study would be necessary to make any causal inferences.

Next, the researchers would like to study the relationship between the MIND diet and attention in youngerchildren, including preschool age and toddlers, to determine if there are any differences based on age and whether a developmental effect is involved. (ANI)