Home Cooking Reduces Dementia Risk in Older Adults

Background: Home cooking may represent a cognitively and behaviorally complex activity with potential relevance to dementia risk in older adults. Objective: To evaluate whether home cooking frequency is associated with incident dementia requiring long-term care. Design: Population-based cohort study using data from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES). Participants/Methods: 10,978 community-dwelling adults aged ≥65 years were followed up for approximately 6 years. Dementia was identified via Japan’s long-term care insurance registry. Results: Higher cooking frequency was associated with reduced dementia risk. Compared to individuals cooking less than once weekly, those cooking at least once per week demonstrated significantly lower dementia incidence (subdistribution hazard ratio [SHR], 0.77 in men; SHR, 0.73 in women after propensity matching). A dose–response relationship was observed, with more frequent cooking correlating with progressively lower risk. more...