Dietary Changes May Slow Alzheimer’s

U.S. researchers have found that a low-carbohydrate diet that reduces total calorie intake by 30 percent slowed the development of Alzheimer’s disease in mice.

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine said the diet eliminated the onset of amyloid plaque — an underlying cause of Alzheimer’s — in mice that were genetically engineered to develop the disease.

They started the mice on the diet when they were 3 months old, which is considered young adult and is prior to the age when Alzheimer’s-prone mice begin to develop plaques in the brain. They then evaluated the mice at age 12 months, which when plaques are known to be well-developed in the mouse strain.

The researchers found less plaque development in mice fed the restricted-calorie diet.