According to the research, the diet may help protect against
brain blood-vessel damage, which in turn cuts the risk of stroke
and memory loss. The diet has long been shown to lower the risk
of heart ailments such as stroke and heart disease, as well as
cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. It consists
largely of vegetables, fruit, fish, whole grains, nuts, olive
oil and moderate consumption of alcohol, with limited intake of
red meat, sweets and refined grains such as white bread. The
study, which was published in the Archives of Neurology, was the
first to look at how the diet affects the brain. The
researchers, from the University of Miami and Columbia
University, looked at food surveys filled out by nearly 1,000
subjects in a larger, ongoing Northern Manhattan Study and
categorized the groups based on how much their diets resembled a
typical Mediterranean-style one. They then used magnetic
resonance imaging, or MRI, scans of the subjects’ brains to look
for damage to small blood vessels that causes