Changes in Brain Volume Associated With Vegetable Intake in a General Population

Abstract

Objective: Although brain atrophy is a natural process of healthy aging, diet may play a role in delaying the process across age. We sought to investigate how food groups associate brain region–specific volume changes over 4 years in a general population.

Methods: We obtained data from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study on 848 community-dwelling individuals. The participants completed a dietary examination using a food frequency questionnaire between 2005 and 2006 to determine habitual usual intakes of food consumption and two brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans between 2011 and 2014 and between 2015 and 2017, respectively. The 106 food items in the questionnaire were regrouped into 18 food groups. A multivariable generalized linear model was used with the adjustment of potential confounding variables.

Results: The average age at baseline was 53.5 years. The average follow-up year of brain MRI was 4.13 ± 0.33 years. With considering a corrected p value due to multiple comparisons, vegetable intake indicated a statistically significant inverse association with gray matter volume change (β = −2.28, p = 0.006), after adjusting for potential confounding variables. Particularly, the temporal region showed a significant inverse association with vegetable intake (β= −0.63, p = 0.002).

Conclusions: In a longitudinal study among 848 cognitively healthy participants from a general population, we found significant inverse associations between vegetable intake and brain gray matter volume change, particularly the change of temporal region.

Keywords:

• Food group
• brain volume
• general population
• aging
• brain atrophy

Acknowledgements

We thank all the study participants as well as the research staff at the Institute of Human Genomic Study at the Ansan Hospital of Korea University and Central Hospital for their contributions to data collection.

Disclosure Statement

All authors have no conflict of interest.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Author Contributions

SL contributed to the concept and design of the study, analysis and interpretation of data, draft, and preparation of the manuscript. EYK contributed to the acquisition of data. CS contributed to the conception, acquisition of data, interpretation of data, and critical review of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a fund from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2005-E71001-00, 2006-E71005-00, 2011-E71004-00, 2012-E71005-00, 2013-E71005-00, 2014-E71003-00, 2015-P71001-00, 2016-E71003-00, 2017-E71001-00) and was provided with bioresources from National Biobank of Korea, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Republic of Korea (KBP-2018-002). This study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korean (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (NRF-2017R1D1A1B03036232).