Eating more anti-inflammatory foods may lower your dementia risk by close to 30%, even if a blood test has already flagged the earliest signs of Alzheimer's, a new 15-year Swedish cohort study suggests. The paper, published in June 2026 in JAMA Network Open, tracked 1,865 adults aged 60 and older and found that the closest adherence to a lower-inflammation eating pattern was linked to a 29% lower risk of dementia among people who already had elevated p-tau217, a blood protein tied to early Alzheimer's pathology.
Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and the University of Ljubljana followed participants from the Swedish National study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K), who were free of dementia at baseline between 2001 and 2004. During follow-up of up to 15 years, 240 participants developed dementia. The study was observational, so it can show an association but not prove that changing what you eat prevents the disease.
The diet the researchers scored
The strongest signal came from a pattern known as the reversed Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Index, which favors vegetables, fruits, tea, coffee, whole grains and legumes, while limiting red and processed meat, refined grains and sugary drinks. It overlaps heavily with what nutrition scientists have long called an anti-inflammatory diet, and with the Mediterranean pattern.
The team also scored participants against two other diets, the Alternate Mediterranean Diet and the Alternative Healthy Eating Index. Higher scores on the anti-inflammatory index were most consistently associated with lower dementia risk, according to the published analysis.
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Why the p-tau217 finding matters
Phosphorylated tau at threonine 217, or p-tau217, is one of the most accurate blood-based markers of early Alzheimer's disease, reports Healio. A raised level does not mean a person has dementia. It means changes tied to Alzheimer's pathology have begun in the brain, often years before symptoms.
That is the group where the diet effect was largest. Adherence to the anti-inflammatory pattern was linked to a hazard ratio of 0.71 in participants with elevated p-tau217, a 29% lower risk of dementia over follow-up. Similar effects appeared for two other blood markers of brain injury and inflammation: a 21% lower risk in those with elevated neurofilament light chain and a 27% lower risk in those with elevated glial fibrillary acidic protein, or GFAP.
"Our study was observational, so it cannot prove that changing diet will improve prognosis or prevent dementia," corresponding author Anja Mrhar, a researcher at the Aging Research Center of the Karolinska Institutet and PhD student at the University of Ljubljana, told Medical News Today.
What it means on the plate
The practical takeaway lines up with what earlier dementia research has pointed toward. Emer MacSweeney, MD, CEO and consultant neuroradiologist at Re:Cognition Health, told the outlet that people can lean into leafy greens, berries, oily fish, nuts, seeds and whole grains, while pulling back on processed foods and sugary drinks.
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That message echoes a growing body of evidence that what you eat may lower dementia risk even when it runs in the family, and that nearly half of dementia cases could be prevented by modifiable risk factors. No single meal will move the needle. Steady patterns over years, the researchers argue, may.
If you have concerns about your memory or a family history of Alzheimer's, talk with your doctor before making major changes to your diet or care.
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This article is made and published by Jesper Bengtson, who may have used AI in the preparation.