Abstract
The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet recommends foods associated with neuroprotective benefits and is related to reduced risk for cognitive decline in older adults. However, no previous study has examined the relationship between MIND diet adherence and cognitive function in childhood. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between diet quality measured by different dietary indices (i.e., Health Eating Index-2020 (HEI-2020) vs. MIND) and attentional inhibition in school-aged children. We hypothesized that although both diet indices would relate to attentional inhibition, relationship magnitude would be stronger with the MIND diet than the HEI. Children (N = 85, 44 female) 9.6 ± 1.9 years completed 7-day diet records to derive HEI-2020 and MIND diet scores and completed a modified Eriksen flanker task to assess attentional inhibition. Step-wise regressions were conducted to assess variance in attentional inhibition explained by each index following adjustment for age, sex, total caloric intake, and household income. Average HEI-2020 was 46 ± 10 and average MIND diet score was 4.5 ± 1.8. The MIND diet was positively related to congruent (β = 0.25, p = 0.02, ΔR2 = 0.06) and incongruent (β = 0.24, p = 0.02, ΔR2 = 0.06) accuracy. However, there was no relationship between HEI-2020 and congruent (β = 0.03, p = 0.77, ΔR2 < 0.01) or incongruent (β = – 0.01, p = 0.95, ΔR2 < 0.01) accuracy. In school-aged children, higher adherence to the MIND diet related to greater accuracy on our attentional inhibition task. This indicates potential benefits of the MIND diet are evident in childhood. Future MIND diet interventions are needed to inform dietary recommendations for optimal cognitive function in children.