The study is published in the September 11, 2007, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study followed 192 people with Alzheimer's disease in New York for an average of four and a half years. During that time, 85 of the people died. Researchers found that those who most closely followed a Mediterranean diet were 76 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who followed the diet the least.

The more closely people followed the Mediterranean diet, the more they reduced their mortality, said study author Nikos Scarmeas, MD, MSc, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and member of the American Academy of Neurology. For example, Alzheimer's patients who adhered to the diet to a moderate degree lived an average 1.3 years longer than those people who least adhered to the diet. And those Alzheimer's patients who followed the diet very religiously lived an average four years longer.

Previous research by Scarmeas and his colleagues demonstrated that healthy people who eat a Mediterranean diet lower their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Studies have also shown that healthy people who follow a Mediterranean diet live longer than those who eat a more traditional Western diet, higher in saturated fat and meats and lower in fruits and vegetables.

New benefits of this diet keep coming out, said Scarmeas. We need to do more research to determine whether eating a Mediterranean diet also helps Alzheimer's patients have slower rates of cognitive decline, maintain their daily living skills, and have a better quality of life.

The Mediterranean diet includes a high intake of vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals, fish, monounsaturated fatty acids; a low intake of saturated fatty acids, dairy products, meat and poultry; and a mild to moderate amount of alcohol.

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Edward Delp, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and an expert in image analysis, will be working to create a reliable method for estimating the sizes of food in the photos. David Ebert, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, will primarily be responsible for techniques to help confirm the portion sizes of the food in pictures. Kyle Lutes, an associate professor in the Department of Computer and Information Technology, will put his experience with hand-held computing devices to work by designing necessary programming.

"There is plenty of work for us to do," Boushey said. "It's going to be difficult to tell the difference between, say, lamb and a pork chop. There's the difficulty of discerning between three cups and one cup in a photo."

Evaluating food intake without the hassle of diet journals could impact American health, she said.

"We're committed to figuring out the details," Boushey said. "Diet is one of the most difficult exposures to measure in terms of how it contributes to disease. People are so confused about diet these days. We want to offer good advice to the public so they can stop throwing up their hands and saying, 'I'm going to eat whatever I want.'"

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