Effect of the NU-AGE Diet on Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults : A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Findings from animal and epidemiological research support the potential neuroprotective benefits from healthy diets. However, to establish diet-neuroprotective causal relations, evidence from dietary intervention studies is needed. NU-AGE is the first multicenter intervention assessing whether a diet targeting health in aging can counteract the age-related physiological changes in different organs, including the brain. In this study, we specifically investigated the effects of NU-AGE’s dietary intervention on age-related cognitive decline.Materials and Methods: NU-AGE randomized trial (NCT01754012, clinicaltrials.gov) included 1279 relatively healthy older-adults, aged 65–79 years, from five European centers. Participants were randomly allocated into two groups: “control” (n = 638), following a habitual diet; and, “intervention” (n = 641), given individually tailored dietary advice (NU-AGE diet). Adherence to the NU-AGE diet was measured over follow-up, and categorized into tertiles (low, moderate, high). Cognitive function was ascertained at baseline and at 1-year follow-up with the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease (CERAD)-Neuropsychological Battery and five additional domain-specific single cognitive tests. The raw scores from the CERAD subtests [excluding the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE)] and the single tests were standardized into Z-scores. Global cognition (measured with MMSE and CERAD-total score), and five cognitive domains (perceptual speed, executive function, episodicmemory, verbal abilities, and constructional praxis) were created. Cognitive changes as a function of the intervention were analyzed with multivariable mixed-effects models.Results: After the 1-year follow-up, 571 (89.1%) controls and 573 (89.8%) fromthe intervention group participated in the post-intervention assessment. Both control and intervention groups showed improvements in global cognition and in all cognitive domains after 1 year, but differences in cognitive changes between the two groups were not statistically significant. However, participants with higher adherence to the NU-AGE diet showed statistically significant improvements in global cognition [b 0.20 (95%CI 0.004, 0.39), p-value = 0.046] and episodic memory [b 0.15 (95%CI 0.02, 0.28), p-value = 0.025] after 1 year, compared to those adults with lower adherence.Discussion: High adherence to the culturally adapted, individually tailored, NU-AGE diet could slow down age-related cognitive decline, helping to prevent cognitive impairment and dementia.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Marseglia, Anna, Xu, W., Fratiglioni, Laura, Fabbri, Cristina, Berendsen, A.M., Bialecka-Debek, Agata, Jennings, A., Gillings, Rachel, Meunier, N., Caumon, E., Fairweather-Tait, S., Pietruszka, B., de Groot, C.P.G.M., Santoro, A., Franceschi, Claudio
Format:	Article/Letter to editor biblioteca
Language:	English
Subjects:	Cognitive decline, Dietary intervention, Episodic memory, Healthy diet, Multicenter, Neuroprotective, Randomized controlled trial,
Online Access:	https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/effect-of-the-nu-age-diet-on-cognitive-functioning-in-older-adult
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