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Development of the cMIND Diet and Its Association with Cognitive Impairment in Older Chinese People

  • Original Research
  • Published:
The journal of nutrition, health & aging

Abstract

Objectives

Cognitive impairment commonly occurs among older people worldwide. Although the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet was associated with better cognitive function and lower risk of cognitive impairment, it could not be applied to older Chinese due to the traditional dietary characteristics in China. We aimed to develop the Chinese version of the MIND (cMIND) diet and verify its association with cognitive impairment among older Chinese individuals.

Design

A cross-sectional study.

Setting and Participants

We included a total of 11,245 participants from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Study (CLHLS) follow-up survey in 2018. The mean age of the participants at study baseline was 84.06 (±11.46) years.

Measurements

We established the cMIND diet based on current evidence in the diet-cognition field, combined with Chinese dietary characteristics. The verification of its association with cognitive impairment was conducted using the data from the CLHLS follow-up survey. Adherence to the cMIND diet was assessed by the cMIND diet score, which was calculated from a food frequency questionnaire. Cognitive impairment was identified by the Mini-Mental State Examination. Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) disability was defined according to the self-reported performance of eight activities.

Results

The cMIND diet comprised 11 brain-healthy food groups and 1 unhealthy food group. The median cMIND diet score of all participants was 4.5 (from a total of 12 points) and the prevalence of cognitive impairment was 15.2%. Compared with the lowest tertile, the highest tertile score was associated with lower odds of cognitive impairment (odds ratio (OR)=0.60, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.51–0.72) and IADL disability (OR=0.86, 95% CI: 0.75–0.98) in the full-adjusted model.

Conclusion

We developed the cMIND diet that was suitable for older Chinese individuals, and our results suggested that higher adherence to the cMIND diet was associated with reduced odds of cognitive impairment and IADL disability. In view of the limitations of cross-sectional design in the study, further research is clearly warranted.

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Acknowledgments

This research used data from the CLHLS. We thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China Key Project (70533010), National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging (R01 AG023627) and National Basic Research Program of China(2013CB530700).

Funding

Funding Statement: This research received no external funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center, No. 38 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100191, China

    X. Huang, S. Aihemaitijiang, C. Ye, M. Halimulati, R. Wang & Zhaofeng Zhang

  2. Beijing’s Key Laboratory of Food Safety Toxicology Research and Evaluation, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Zhaofeng Zhang

Authors
  1. X. Huang
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  2. S. Aihemaitijiang
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  4. M. Halimulati
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  5. R. Wang
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Contributions

Author Contributions: Conceptualization: Xiaojie Huang, Sumiya Aihemaitijiang and Zhaofeng Zhang; methodology: Xiaojie Huang and Chen Ye; data analysis and data interpretation: Xiaojie Huang, Mairepaiti Halimulati and Ruoyu Wang; writing of the manuscript: Xiaojie Huang; supervision: Zhaofeng Zhang; project administration: Zhaofeng Zhang. All authors meet the criteria for authorship stated in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhaofeng Zhang.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical Standards: We obtained data from the CLHLS. The Biomedical Ethics Committee of Peking University approved the CLHLS (IRB00001052-13074).

Additional information

Sponsor’s Role: The sponsors did not play a role in the design, methods, subject recruitment, data collection, analysis, or preparation of this study.

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Huang, X., Aihemaitijiang, S., Ye, C. et al. Development of the cMIND Diet and Its Association with Cognitive Impairment in Older Chinese People. J Nutr Health Aging 26, 760–770 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-022-1829-1

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