Dear Sir: We thank Aalbers et al for their letter with regard to our recent publication on midlife Mediterranean diet adherence and subsequent cognitive function (1). In fact, as stated in the article, our aim was to explore the cross-time association between midlife dietary exposure (adherence to a Mediterranean diet) and subsequent cognitive function. Adherence to a Mediterranean diet was assessed by using repeated 24-h dietary records collected over a 2-y period. That time frame was chosen to assess "usual, typical diet," as is often done in longitudinal epi-demiologic studies. We would like to clarify that our study did not involve any intervention. In other words, we did not promote a Mediterranean diet (or any aspect thereof) in any way. Perhaps, a possible source of confusion was the fact that the SU.VI.MAX participants were recruited for an antioxidant intervention trial that was entirely unrelated to the study of Mediterranean diet adherence and cognition. The SU.VI.MAX protocol included the collection of self-reported data on dietary intake (via repeated 24-h dietary records), and those are the data used in the present study.
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