A new study by the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Cancer Center has found that eating a plant-based diet can either raise or decrease your dementia risk. The study, which tracked the diets and cognitive health of nearly 93,000 participants for over a decade, divided the diets into three categories: Overall plant-born, healthful, and unhealthful. The healthful diet included foods like whole grains, fruits, vegetables, vegetable oils, nuts, legumes, tea and coffee. However, low-quality diets heavily reliant on refined carbs and sugars increased a person's risk of cognitive disease by 6%. Those who started out eating healthier foods but shifted towards an unhealthy diet over time saw their risk rise by 25%. The findings could help clarify clinical understandings of the benefits and potential risks of the plant diet.