MIND Diet – Food for the Head?

1. What Exactly Is It?

The MIND diet is not a single food. You cannot hold it in your hand like an apple or a nut. It is an entire way of eating — like a plan for many days and many meals.

Researchers created this plan by combining two other eating patterns. One is Mediterranean cuisine, the other is called DASH. The MIND diet merges the two. In the studies it is referred to simply as MIND.

The name sounds like the English word “mind”. That means “intellect” or “head”. And that is the point: the question of whether this way of eating is good for the head.

The word “diet” here does not necessarily mean “losing weight”. It simply means a particular way of eating over a long period. Some foods appear on the plate more often, others less often. Because several things change at the same time, it is tricky to work out what really matters. That is exactly what the researchers try to separate in their studies.

2. Where Does It Come From?

The MIND diet does not grow in a field and does not sit on a shelf. It is an idea: a particular way of eating.

It takes its name from two other eating patterns. “Mediterranean” comes from the Mediterranean Sea — that is what the cuisine of the countries around this sea is called. The second is called DASH. The short name MIND was formed from the initial letters of its long English name.

So you cannot buy it like a loaf of bread. You can only decide to eat this way for a while. In the studies some people ate according to this plan and others ate differently. Afterwards the researchers compared what had changed.

3. What Are the Researchers Investigating?

There are 227 scientific papers on this way of eating. Of these, 143 involved humans. 31 of them were comparisons: one group ate according to the MIND diet, another ate differently, and then the researchers looked at what differed.

These studies examined, for example, thinking and remembering. The participants completed tasks in which they had to remember words or react quickly. In one study, images of the brain were also taken to see whether anything changed there.

Other studies looked at sleep, mood and substances in the blood. In one of them a substance called α-carotene in the blood was linked to how well the people could think. That does not mean this substance improves thinking — the researchers only observed that both occurred together.

Another study combined exercise with this way of eating and examined brain cells. And many questions remain open: whether this way of eating really helps the head, how long one would have to eat this way and how a change can be reliably detected.

4. An Experiment to Think About

Think of a school day when you paid good attention. What was the reason? Perhaps you had slept enough. Perhaps breakfast was different from usual. Perhaps the task was simply interesting.

Now imagine you want to find out whether a particular way of eating helps with that. You would have to write down exactly what you eat for many weeks. You would also have to note how you slept and how much you moved. And then you would need someone who does everything the same — except for the eating. Only when two groups are compared can one guess what comes from the eating and what comes from everything else.

For adults and professionals: the detailed page on MIND diet.