We previously wrote about how the Mediterranean diet‘s close cousins DASH and MIND were voted (by a panel of 69 doctors and nutritionists) as best for heart and brain health, respectively.

Here is that article, for reference: Which Diet? Top Diets Ranked By Experts

When we say “close cousins”, in this case we mean that DASH and MIND are variations of the Mediterranean in any case; see: Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet

And for more on the Mediterranean Diet itself, see: The Mediterranean Diet: What Is It Good For? ← More to the point: what isn’t it good for?

• It’s also been found, societally, to reduce general healthcare costs—basically, people get sick less and so have fewer healthcare costs.
• It’s been found to reduce all-cause mortality, which is about the best thing one can say of any diet.
• It’s especially good for heart health and against cancer.
• It’s particularly recommended for the prevention or management of diabetes.

What about best against aging?

We’ve written about eating vs aging, too:

How Much Does A Vegan Diet Affect Biological Aging? ← the answer is, it’s a lot, measurable even over the course of just 8 weeks of vegan eating:

As to the difference it made over the course of the 8 weeks…

❝Various measures of epigenetic age acceleration (PC GrimAge, PC PhenoAge, DunedinPACE) were assessed, along with system-specific effects (Inflammation, Heart, Hormone, Liver, and Metabolic).

Distinct responses were observed, with the vegan cohort exhibiting significant decreases in overall epigenetic age acceleration, aligning with anti-aging effects of plant-based diets. Diet-specific shifts were noted in the analysis of methylation surrogates, demonstrating the influence of diet on complex trait prediction through DNA methylation markers.❞

~ Dr. Varun Dwaraka et al. ← there’s a lot of “et al.” to this one; the paper had 16 collaborating authors!

This is not too surprising, since the Mediterranean diet is mostly plant-based anyway with very little meat and some fermented dairy,

Is there an alternative?

Yes there is! So if you don’t want to put aside all animal products, the diet we’ll talk about now is the one you want.

On the other hand: if you do want to put aside all animal products or are already vegan, then, this diet does not require animal products; it merely permits the inclusion of a few of them.

It’s called the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), and (though one could quibble over definitions) it is generally considered to have been launched in 2010.

You may be wondering: if it was launched in 2010, why is it being described as a new contender for “best for heart and brain” in aging?

And the answer is: that is new, in the category of anything we want longitudinal studies for. While some markers of aging can be measured over the duration of a short RCT, as in the vegan study we quoted above, to be able to categorically declare its long-term benefits to organs, we need long-term science, and that takes time.

All so recently, a 15-year longitudinal study has “matured”, as it were, and been published. Specifically, the study followed 2,473 adults aged 60+ for 15 years to examine the effect of dietary patterns on multimorbidity (two or more chronic conditions).

The diets they examined:

• Alternate Mediterranean diet (AMED)
• Mediterranean–DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND)
• Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI)
• Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Index (EDII)

What they found, in few words: The AMED, AHEI, and MIND diets were linked to a slower accumulation of chronic diseases, especially cardiovascular and neuropsychiatric conditions, while a pro-inflammatory diet (EDII) was (shocking nobody) associated with faster disease accumulation.

This was “dose dependent”, too, in the sense that those with the highest adherence to MIND and AHEI accumulated about two fewer chronic diseases over 15 years compared to those with the lowest adherence, and AHEI generally showed the most consistent protective associations.

It’s also worth noting that the benefits for cardiovascular disease appeared greatest in women and in participants aged 78+, though the extent to which those benefits showed themselves depended slightly on the statistical modelling method used.

You can read the paper here: Dietary patterns and accelerated multimorbidity in older adults

What’s in the AHEI Diet?

There is a little room for flexibility, and different studies may have slightly different definitions (which we will discuss), there is a clear general theme.

When we discussed the AHEI a few months ago, talking about a 30-year retrospective study (so, looking back on previous data and tallying it against the index that was created after the data was collected), and for that study it was parametered as essentially the Mediterranean diet with three small tweaks:

• no seafood, but long-chain omega-3 fatty acids include to compensate
• no sugar-sweetened beverages or fruit juices
• “no” sodium (in other words, minimal sodium, since almost everything contains trace amounts)

Indeed, they noted:

❝Higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, unsaturated fats, nuts, legumes and low-fat dairy products were linked to greater odds of healthy aging, whereas higher intakes of trans fats, sodium, sugary beverages and red or processed meats (or both) were inversely associated.❞

Read in full: Optimal dietary patterns for healthy aging

With this in mind, in this 15-year longitudinal study, they included three additional stipulations, namely:

• little to no butter/cheese, ideally none
• little to no red meat, ideally none
• no processed meats

…which latter may be considered a de facto necessity under the “minimal sodium” directive, but the point is, this time it was spelled out.

Want to learn more?

You might like:

Better Than The Mediterranean? ← this is about what happens if we simply remove the remaining animal products from the Mediterranean Diet.

Enjoy!