Greetings of the season:
God jul! Merry Christmas. Joyeux noël. Fröhe Weihnachten. Feliz Navidad. Buon Natale!
My wife spent the Monday before last in a hospital, being examined some of the time, but mostly just sitting there waiting (I kept her company). I then did exactly the same thing myself on the Tuesday (and she accompanied me). In my wife’s case they said: “It will be okay”; and we hope that they are right. In my case they gave me some pills to take 3 times per day, every day for the rest of my life. These are the outcomes of getting older (we are in our mid-60s) — back in the old days people didn’t make it, to get any older, but these days we slowly undergo physical and mental degeneration for quite a long while.
In this regard, old age is acknowledged to be a time when you have to care most about your diet. So, it matters to my wife and I what diet we follow, especially with regard to our mental health. One that is sometimes recommended is the so-called MIND diet, especially with regard to our brains and their continued functioning. I will discuss this diet here, because it specifically includes wine as one of the recommended components. Furthermore, recent scientific studies have suggested that this diet really can work.
The MIND diet is apparently designed to reduce the risk of dementia and loss of brain function as we age. “MIND” apparently stands for “Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay.” It combines the Mediterranean diet and the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, to create a dietary pattern that focuses specifically on brain health.
You can usefully read about it here:
God jul! Merry Christmas. Joyeux noël. Fröhe Weihnachten. Feliz Navidad. Buon Natale!
My wife spent the Monday before last in a hospital, being examined some of the time, but mostly just sitting there waiting (I kept her company). I then did exactly the same thing myself on the Tuesday (and she accompanied me). In my wife’s case they said: “It will be okay”; and we hope that they are right. In my case they gave me some pills to take 3 times per day, every day for the rest of my life. These are the outcomes of getting older (we are in our mid-60s) — back in the old days people didn’t make it, to get any older, but these days we slowly undergo physical and mental degeneration for quite a long while.
In this regard, old age is acknowledged to be a time when you have to care most about your diet. So, it matters to my wife and I what diet we follow, especially with regard to our mental health. One that is sometimes recommended is the so-called MIND diet, especially with regard to our brains and their continued functioning. I will discuss this diet here, because it specifically includes wine as one of the recommended components. Furthermore, recent scientific studies have suggested that this diet really can work.
The MIND diet is apparently designed to reduce the risk of dementia and loss of brain function as we age. “MIND” apparently stands for “Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay.” It combines the Mediterranean diet and the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, to create a dietary pattern that focuses specifically on brain health.
You can usefully read about it here:
or here:
There are 10 brain-healthy foods that the MIND diet encourages (green leafy vegetables, other vegetables, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, poultry, olive oil, and wine) and 5 unhealthy foods that the diet discourages (red meats, butter and stick margarine, cheese, pastries and sweets, and fried/fast food).
Note the presence of wine in that list (but not beer or spirits!). This comes from the Mediterranean diet. This web page notes:
Wine: Aim for no more than one glass daily. Both red and white wine may benefit your brain. While there has been much interest in the compound resveratrol, which is found in red wine, recent research has questioned whether it has clear benefits in humans.
There have been a number of scientific studies of the MIND diet; for example:
- MIND diet slows cognitive decline with aging (in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia)
- Association of MIND diet with cognitive decline among Black and White older adults (in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia)
We found that the MIND diet may prevent cognitive decline with aging in both non-Hispanic White and Black older adults. We found that adding one MIND diet-recommended component or limiting any unhealthy component resulted in a rate reduction of cognitive decline equivalent to being two years younger in age.
However, the relationship between diet and cognitive function was not uniform across racial groups. Among White participants, moderate adherence to the diet — scoring around 7 out of 15 on the MIND diet scale — was sufficient to observe cognitive benefits. In contrast, Black participants needed stricter adherence, scoring at least 8.5, to experience similar effects.
As an aside, I will point out that there are apparently also 6 beers good for your gut health according to experts. Moreover, there are, of course, other articles about alcohol and health that are much more moderate than the increasingly extreme ones from official sources that should know better. These include:
People sometimes seem to wonder what an author of a blog like this might eat and drink. So, here is the special dinner that my wife and I ate the other day (note that it does not adhere strictly to the MIND diet — our usual meals are much closer):
- Mussels (with onion, garlic, white wine)
- Halibut, oven-cooked, in a white wine sauce (shallot onion, butter, white wine, fish stock cube, cream, salt, pepper), plus potatoes [no greenery — should have had spinach]
- Saffron buns (with almond paste and cardamom) = Saffransbullar, a traditional Swedish treat at this time of year
- Tim Adams Clare Valley Reserve Riesling 2008, hoarded for the previous decade and a half [one bottle between two people, so more than one glass each]
- Yalumba Antique Muscat (Eden Valley) [small glass each]
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