The Mediterranean Diet

Prior to 2003, there had been a number of studies to indicate how healthy the Mediterranean Diet is but no definitive data. In a large study that examined over 22,000 healthy adults in Greece, Antonia Trichopoulou and his colleagues found that those eating a Mediterranean diet had a significant reduction in death due to heart disease and cancer.

This was the first large scale study to evaluate people “prospectively” with the researchers following participants over time. Dr. Trichopoulou and his colleagues evaluated the diets of those in the study for a year prior to the beginning of data collection. They then looked at nine dietary components. A value was assigned of either 1 or 0 for each dietary category. If a participant was found to have eaten a diet higher in one of the nine dietary components they received a 1. The maximum score for a “perfect” Mediterranean diet would be 9 and a score of 0 would indicate a more Western diet pattern. They also issued a lifestyle questionnaire that recorded physical activity.

The results are pretty amazing. Those who had better scores lived longer. The best part is that small changes have a large effect. A two point improvement (say from 5 to 7) on Dr. Trichopoulou’s scale resulted in a 25% reduction in death from heart disease. This would mean that by simply eating more vegetables and legumes you could markedly improve your health.

The results of this research are so fantastic because they show how simple changes can make a major difference in your health. While the researchers looked a number of factors, the core of the Mediterranean diet can be broken into 9 important areas of change for your health. Next Page »