UEA launch study to see if a Mediterranean diet could help prevent dementia
They're looking for volunteers aged between 55 and 74 from Norfolk who are happy to adopt such a diet for 24 weeks
Researchers at the UEA need our help to see whether adopting a Mediterranean diet could help prevent dementia.
They're looking for volunteers aged between 55 and 74 from Norfolk who are willing to eat meals rich in vegetables, fish and olive oil, amongst other things for 24 weeks.
Professor Anne-Marie Minihane is from the University's medical school and leading the study.
She explains what she and her colleagues will be looking for and what's involved:
"We want to measure people's brain function, their cognitive performance. So that is the main point of the study, to see that if folks follow this dietary practice for 24 weeks, will they notice an improvement in their brain function? The early indications are that they absolutely should even after 24 weeks.
We'll need people to fill out some questionnaires online or give some answers to us over zoom. We'll ask people to take their blood pressure at home, we will ask people to collect a blood spot, a finger-print blood spot that they can send back in the post and obviously the main thing we ask people to do is to stick to the dietary guidelines we provide them with".
She's says this is all about learning more and seeing how these results can be put into practice:
"The question is, if we adopt such an Mediterranean plant-based diet in northern Europe will we be afforded the same benefits. Also how do we go about doing it, how do we implement such a diet against the backdrop of UK practices.
She concluded by saying this could be the start of something special:
"It's been running in Norwich and in Newcastle in the first instance. If we get really positive results then the idea is to roll it out nation-wide into a longer and larger study. So, this is 24 weeks and that's quite compact. Ideally, we'd run this over two years and across the country. If we're success here, that would be our long-term plan".
If you'd like to be a part of the study send an email to: medexuk@uea.ac.uk