“The foods that promote brain health, including vegetables, berries, fish and olive oil, are included in the MIND diet,” said Dr. Laurel J. Cherian, a vascular neurologist and assistant professor in Rush’s Department of Neurological Sciences. “We found that it has the potential to help slow cognitive decline in stroke survivors.” “The foods that promote brain health, including vegetables, berries, fish and olive oil, are included in the MIND diet,” said Dr. Laurel J. Cherian, a vascular neurologist and assistant professor in Rush’s Department of Neurological Sciences. “We found that it has the potential to help slow cognitive decline in stroke survivors.”

From 2004 to 2017, Cherian and colleagues studied 106 participants of the Rush Memory and Ageing Project who had a history of stroke for cognitive decline, including decline in one’s ability to think, reason and remember. They assessed people in the study every year until their deaths or the study’s conclusion, for an average of 5.9 years, and monitored patients' eating habits using food journals.

Participants were put into groups based on whether they were highly adherent to the MIND diet, moderately adherent or least adherent. Other factors known to affect cognitive performance were also taken into consideration, such as age, gender, education level, participation in cognitively stimulating activities, physical activity, smoking and genetics.

The study participants whose diets scored highest on the MIND diet score had substantially slower rate of cognitive decline than those who scored lowest.