The latest addition to the long list of things that supposedly reduce the risk of dementia, add nuts and beans…bet a nut and bean heavy diet will clean you out too. 
Seems to be an inordinate amount of attention focused on things that supposedly reduce risk of dementia. Think the media hype is related to the number of geezer boomers around?
It won’t lower the risk of Alzheimers. Alzheimers isn’t “caused” It’s normal brain aging. They just don’t want to admit it. Dementia has several causes depending on type but not eating enough fiber or not running enough laps isn’t a cause or not eating this or that isn’t a cause. Eating beans and nuts (especially the nuts) will be great for urologists because they are high in oxalates and that causes kidney stones. And not in an exercise “lowers” the “risk” of dementia fantasy way. In an actual scientific cause-and-effect way.
And yet, we see my maternal grandmother, and mother, both develop dementia at 76, but both of my aunts had all their marbles well into their 80s and my maternal grandfather made it to 96. with all his marbles.
Steve
As Andy Rooney was famous for saying: J’a ever notice… how people seem to age differently? Yes, they do. Trying to account for all the variables and exceptions is not without merit but it’s sort of loony to think we can nail everything down nice and tidy and think we then “know all about it.”
I will also take this moment to invoke the well-known reproducibility crisis in all fields of science. Not just the hand-wringers of climate “science”, or the life-science’s sitting in a chair is just like smoking 2 packs of cigarettes or you can’t be healthy without eating grains preachers. It affects all fields of science. All with “latest studies that show.” IOW: They are A) lying B) Incompetent C) Both. Anything that might be true and useful cannot be discerned. We used to have a saying in the airplane controlling business*: Good information is good. No information is bad. Bad information is a catastrophe waiting to happen* (or fill in darkly humorous disaster reference)
But we should believe them because of 1) the fallacy of consensus, 2) it has to do with “data” and therefore means something, or 3) they want us to believe that scientists are not like every other group of humans in every other human endeavour and cannot lie, and have no other interests at stake.
laff break: my maternal grandparents lived in the same household, since they were small children. The one major difference is my grandfather worked, as a car and truck mechanic. He was exposed, daily, to leaded gasoline, other automotive lubricants and solvents, and asbestos from brake linings. He lived to 96, with all his facilties. She was a housewife, lived in the relatively clean, safe, house. Other big difference: grandma gave birth to three children. She developed dementia by age 76, and died at 79. My mom gave birth to one child, developed dementia by age 76, and died at 88. One aunt never married, had no children, other than the thousands she taught over the years. and died at 87 with all her marbles. My other aunt had no biological children, but adopted two boys. She is still living at 95, but started to lose her grip six or eight years ago.
So, based on my observations, the thing that correlates best with dementia is giving birth to spawn.
Steve
I can show direct cause and effect in my own case with better data than a million studies could ever give. Studies by nature never apply to any single specimen. They just tell us (and I don’t believe they even to it all that reliably) what the chances are but everybody wants to conflate it with what their chances are if they do or don’t do certain things. makes them feel like they have some agency and control over fate. In my case early heart disease onset, asymptomatic, undetected, and apparently undetectable advanced heart disease is directly related to 45 years of doing what the doctor tells you, getting plenty of exercise, and eating right, including 22 years as a vegetarian. I did those things ergo latest study shows they are causal. I mean like ya know man, the data says… (No, not “say”. “Says.” )
Lots of doctors dealing with insulin resistance have commented that reversing the condition has multiple beneficial effects including reducing or reversing mental disorders.
What they can’t find is the perfect diet. Different diets work for different people. Common threads include eliminating sugars, reducing carbohydrates, and eliminating seed oils.
Life forms have evolved defenses to fight off pathogens and poisons. Diets don’t need to be perfect, just good enough not to overwhelm the body’s natural defenses.
The Captain
Yes, but, it is largely because of the much greater longevity of the Greatest and Silent generations to old age compared to their ancestors, and boomers were the first generation to deal with that volume and to come to want something different.
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