Diet and Dementia: An Update

What can I do? That was the question posed to us by Food Programme listener Angie Roberts who cares for her mother Clara. Clara, like 850 thousand others in the UK, has dementia, and meal times were making her anxious.

9 months on from our last edition on food and dementia, Sheila Dillon hears from people living with dementia to see how food figures in their lives. She catches up with dementia entrepreneur James Ashwell, founder of Unforgettable.org and hears how he has made gadgets to make eating and drinking easier, available on the high street. Sheila also hears again from award winning food writer Paula Wolfert and her biographer and friend Emily Kaiser Thelin, and their work together on a book telling Paula's life story. From documenting Morocco and its cuisine in the 1970s, to the changes Paula has made to her diet to try to ameliorate her disease.

Sheila speaks to Professor of nutritional medicine, Margaret Rayman and nutritional epidemiologist Dr Martha Clare Morris, on the latest research into the connections between what we eat and whether or not we develop dementia.

Presented by Sheila Dillon
Produced by Clare Salisbury

This programme is an update of the edition 'Diet & Dementia' from October 2016 which recently won 'Radio Programme of the Year' at the Fortnum & Mason food and drink awards.

Photo credit: William Bayer.