19 October 2026Eggs, Dairy, Medical

Why are so Many People Getting Dementia?

On 10 October 2026, an article was published on the Good Weekend of the Sydney Morning Herald that suggested that changes in dementia treatment was going to change the devastating impact of dementia as a result of earlier diagnosis and better treatment plans. ¹

The mortality rate of dementia has been growing exponentially since 1980. The prevalence and the number of years living with dementia has also increased significantly.

That is the bad news. There is some good news.

The World Health Organisation describes dementia as a syndrome in which there is “deterioration in cognitive function (i.e. the ability to process thought) beyond what might be seen with normal ageing”.

It is usually chronic or progressive in its nature and affects memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, language, and judgement. A decrease in emotional control, social behaviour or motivation can often be seen with the decline in cognitive functioning. ²

The latest available statistics (2018) regarding prevalence shows 1% in 65-74 age group rising to 28% for those 95 and over.

On average, people live 3 to 11 years after an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis. Alzheimer’s disease is the most frequent type of dementia accounting for 60% to 80% of all cases. It is caused by protein fragments (amyloid plaques and tau protein) in the brain.

Alzheimer’s Disease and Vascular Disease

For decades studies have associated Alzheimer’s disease with vascular disease. Vascular disease is strongly associated with diet. Waiting for symptoms to appear before taking action is detrimental.

For some time, it has been proposed that cardiovascular disease (CaVD), hypertension, and diabetes mellitus (DM), which are known risk factors for VaD [vascular disease], also are associated with and contribute to the development of AD [Alzheimer’s disease] ³

This is of particular concern for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians as dementia prevalence is 3 to 5 times higher compared to the general Australian population.

Low education, smoking, physical inactivity, depression, midlife obesity, midlife hypertension, and diabetes have all been identified as major worldwide risk factors for AD [Alzheimer’s disease]⁴

Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia are the two most common types of dementia with the former being the most predominant. It is evident that oxidative stress, an environment where pro-oxidant species overwhelm antioxidant species, is involved in the pathogenesis of both forms of dementia. ⁵

Neuroimaging studies have reported VRFs [vascular risk factors] for AD [Alzheimer’s disease] to be accurate predictors of cognitive decline and dementia.

The VRF can be present in cognitively intact individuals for decades before mild cognitive deficits or neuropathological signs are manifested. ⁶

Diet and the Risk of Dementia

A study published in 2025 by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, examined the associations between the long-term intakes of processed and unprocessed red meat and dementia, objectively measured cognitive function and subjective cognitive decline in 2 large prospective cohorts of US adults, the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS) with up to 43 years of follow-up. ⁷

The dementia analysis included 133,771 participants (65.4% female) with a mean baseline age of 48.9 years, the objective cognitive function analysis included 17,458 female participants with a mean baseline age of 74.3 years and subjective cognitive decline analysis included 43,966 participants (77.1% female) with a mean baseline age of 77.9 years.

Participants with processed red meat intake ≥ 0.25 serving per day, compared with <0.10 serving per day, had a 13% higher risk of dementia and a 14% higher risk of subjective cognitive decline.
Higher processed red meat intake was associated with accelerated aging in global cognition (1.61 years per 1 serving per day increment and in verbal memory (1.69 years per 1 serving per day increment).
Unprocessed red meat intake of ≥ 1.00 serving per day, compared with <0.50 serving per day, was associated with a 16% higher risk of subjective cognitive decline.
Replacing 1 serving per day of nuts and legumes for processed red meat was associated with a 19% lower risk of dementia, 1.37 fewer years of cognitive aging and a 21% lower risk of subjective cognitive decline.

One serving is 60-90 g (2-3 oz) of cooked meat, chicken or fish, ½ cup (125 ml) of cooked beans, lentils or tofu or 1 egg. A Big Mac is consists of two 45 g (1.6 oz) beef patties with a “special sauce”. 3 garden peas weigh 1 gram.

It does not take much reduction in red meat consumption to have a significant difference in dementia outcomes.

You can do much better by consuming a healthy whole-food, plant-based with NO added oils or simple sugars (which includes fruit juice).

A study that included 2,984 unmatched subjects who resided within the Loma Linda, California area. All subjects were enrolled in the Adventist Health Study. The matched subjects who ate meat (including poultry and fish) were more than twice as likely to become demented as their vegetarian counterparts (relative risk 2.18) and the discrepancy was further widened (relative risk 2.99) when past meat consumption was taken into account. ⁸

Note that Seventh-day Adventists are much healthier that the average American.

The results are startling and unequivocal. Even in this healthy cohort, if you eat red meat there is a three times greater risk of developing dementia.

The impact of a Taiwanese vegetarian diet in midlife (mostly ovo-lactovegetarian, meatless) on the subsequent development of dementia was examined in the following 2022 study. ⁹

The number of people living with dementia globally is increasing rapidly, and there is no effective therapy. Dietary pattern is one important risk factor for the development and progression of dementia.

We undertake this study to determine whether Taiwanese vegetarian diet in midlife affects dementia incidence in later years in a prospective cohort. We followed 5710 participants (average age less than 60) in the Tzu Chi Vegetarian Study (TCVS).

We started recruiting in 2005 and followed until the end of 2014 when the database changed from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM codes.

There were 121 cases of dementia (37 vegetarians and 84 nonvegetarians) diagnosed. Vegetarians were associated with reduced risk of clinically overt dementia compared with nonvegetarians (hazard ratio = 0.671).

Important: The vegetarian group included those who ate eggs and diary.

Note: The Buddhists vegetarian group were healthier than the general Taiwanese population.

The following study relates to Type 2 Diabetes. It does show the impact of even a very small amount of animal-based food substantially increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes.

A Taiwanese Buddhist study with 4,384 participants compared type 2 diabetes outcomes for lacto-ovo-vegetarians compared with those who consumed meat. The meat-eating group ate only a very small amount of meat. ¹⁰

The cause of type 2 diabetes has been known for decades.

Search the website for “intramyocellular” for more details.

Meat intake for females: 50% consumed less than 10 g/day; 25% consumed less than 2 g/day.
Meat intake for males: 50% consumed less than 20 g/day; 25% consumed less than 7 g/day.
Fish and meat intake for females: 50% consumed less than 17 g/day; 25% consumed less than 3 g/day.
Fish and meat intake for males: 50% consumed less than 37 g/day; 25% consumed less than 11 g/day.

There were insufficient numbers to divide the vegetarians into subgroups (pesco, lacto-ovo, vegan). There were 69 vegans (no animal products) and there were no cases of diabetes within this group.

One Big Mac, with 2 meat patties, contains 90 g of meat—so the participants were consuming only a very small amount of meat. Three garden peas weigh a gram.

That minute amount of meat increased the risk of diabetes 4 times for females and 2 times for males. Not an endorsement for moderation.

Increasing Rates of Obesity

Due to increasing rates of obesity, inactivity, and an aging population, type 2 diabetes is more prevalent in our society than ever before. In high-income countries, death from diabetes dropped from 2000 to 2010, but then increased from 2010 to 2016 — leading to an overall 5% increase in premature deaths since 2000.

Particularly troubling is that type 2 diabetes is now being seen frequently in children, due to their obesity and inactivity.

It has been known for many years that type 2 diabetes increases your risk for strokes and heart disease. More recent studies have shown that diabetes also increases your risk of dementia. ¹¹

In Australia, the rates of overweight and obesityhave increased since 1995. Overweight is defined as BMI from 25 kg/(m•m) up to 30 kg/(m•m). Obesity over 30 kg/(m•m).

1995: Overweight rate 18.9%. 2024: Overweight rate 32.2% – An increase of 70%.
1995: Overweight & obese rate 57.1%. 2024: Overweight & obese rate 66.1% – An increase of 15%.

A study involving researchers in India, UK and Norway investigated BMI and all-cause mortality. The study consisted of a review of 230 cohort studies with 3.74 million deaths among 30.3 million participants. A key finding was that an ideal BMI was 20-22 kg/(m•m). ¹²

Last updated on Monday 9 November 2026 at 15:59 by administrators

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Footnotes

Hooton, A. (2026) A dementia diagnosis has long been a death sentence. But are things about to change? Goodweekend | Sydney Morning Herald. 10 October.
Australia Bureau of Statistics (2020) Dementia in Australia [online]. Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/dementia-australia.
Javanshiri, K. et al. (2018) Atherosclerosis, hypertension, and diabetes in Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and mixed dementia: prevalence and presentation. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. 65 (4), 1247–1258.
Radford, K. et al. (2019) Factors Associated with the High Prevalence of Dementia in Older Aboriginal Australians. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. 70 (s1), S75–S85.
Bennett, S. et al. (2009) Oxidative Stress in Vascular Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Common Pathology. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. 17 (2), 245–257.
de la Torre, J. C. (2013) Vascular risk factors: a ticking time bomb to Alzheimer’s disease. American Journal of Alzheimer’s disease and other Dementias. 28 (6), 551–559.
Li, Yuhan et al. (2025) Long-term intake of red meat in relation to dementia risk and cognitive function in US adults. Neurology. 104 (3), e210286.
Giem, P. et al. (1993) The incidence of dementia and intake of animal products: preliminary findings from the Adventist Health Study. Neuroepidemiology. 12 (1), 28–36.
Tsai, J.-H. et al. (2022) Taiwanese Vegetarians Are Associated with Lower Dementia Risk: A Prospective Cohort Study. Nutrients. 14 (3)
Chiu, T. H. T. et al. (2014) Taiwanese Vegetarians and Omnivores: Dietary Composition, Prevalence of Diabetes and IFG Marià Alemany (ed.). PLoS ONE. 9 (2), e88547.
Budson, A. (2021) What’s the relationship between diabetes and dementia? [online]. Available from: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/whats-the-relationship-between-diabetes-and-dementia-202107122546/.
Aune, D. et al. (2016) BMI and all cause mortality: systematic review and non-linear dose-response meta-analysis of 230 cohort studies with 3.74 million deaths among 30.3 million participants. BMJ. 353 (i2126),.

Tags: alzheimers disease dementia meat vegan wfpb diet whole food plant based diet

Why are so Many People Getting Dementia?

Alzheimer’s Disease and Vascular Disease

Diet and the Risk of Dementia

Increasing Rates of Obesity

Footnotes

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