No guilt when you greedily throw yourself at the cheese platter during the holidays: your brain will thank you later. A study published in the journal of the American Academy of Neurology Neurology highlights a surprising property of cheese: it limits the risk of dementia.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), dementia affects more than 57 million people worldwide. In France, there are 710,000 people living with one form or another of this cognitive disorder. Faced with these figures, research is exploring different avenues and has been interested for several years in the role of diet in the preservation of cognitive functions.
It is in this context that this Swedish study comes into play which ensures that daily consumption of around 60 grams of high-fat cheese would reduce the risk of dementia by 16%. To obtain this result, scientists followed nearly 28,000 adults in Malmö for around twenty-five years, as reported by Fast Company.
Conclusion: the Swedes who favored cheeses with more than 20% fat, such as cheddar, gouda or blue, are moving away from further intellectual misguidedness. But be careful, the causal link does not concern other dairy products: yogurts, milk or even cream do not have the same virtues.
Nothing like a good piece of gouda
If brain health constitutes the new flagship argument for snacking on a small square of Gruyère, the authors of the study call for caution. The benefits of cheese could actually reflect a change in eating habits: some participants would have abandoned processed red meat in favor of a slice of melted cheddar. “It’s not so much that full-fat cheese is inherently neuroprotective, but rather that it’s a less harmful choice than red or processed meat“, explains Tian-Shin Yeh, a nutritionist at Taipei Medical University in Taiwan.
Emily Sonestedt, who edited the publication, is more enthusiastic. According to her, the beneficial effects of vitamins K and B12 or calcium have already been proven. Without definitively deciding on the question of causality, the study “challenges the idea that all high-fat dairy products are bad for the brain“, she specifies.
This observation is even echoed by American institutions. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed that the 2026 edition of the federal dietary recommendations “will insist on the need to consume» saturated fats, dairy products, fresh meat and vegetables. Distrust all the same on this side, RFK is not particularly renowned for his medical knowledge, he who without batting an eyelid linked paracetamol and autism until recently.
If some scientists remain skeptical of his new conclusions – professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School Walter Willet assures “don’t go running and buy a piece of cheese” – lovers of soft dough will at least be able to boast of enjoying a food that is good for their brain.
