Olives not fish key to Mediterranean health
Wednesday June 24th, 2009
Some components of the so-called Mediterranean diet are more beneficial than others, researchers reported today.
Fruits, vegetables, nuts, pulses and olive oil, and alcohol in moderation, are more closely linked to longer life than fish, seafood and cereals, according to this recent study.
Part of the reason why seafood may not make much contribution to the diet is that, in reality, most Europeans do not eat a great deal of it.
Professor Dimitrios Trichopoulos of Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA, and colleagues investigate the relative importance of these foods using figures from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and nutrition.
On the website of the British Medical Journal they explain that this is the first attempt to discover the relative importance of individual dietary components in the link between the Mediterranean diet and mortality.
Analysis was based on 23,349 healthy men and women followed for around 8.5 years.
Overall, keeping to a typical Mediterranean diet was linked to a significantly lower risk of death from all causes. Risk was reduced by about 14 per cent among those keeping to the diet, which includes lower intakes of red meat and dairy.
The researchers conclude: "The dominant components of the Mediterranean diet score as a predictor of lower mortality are moderate consumption of ethanol, low consumption of meat and meat products, and high consumption of vegetables, fruits and nuts, olive oil, and legumes.
"Minimal contributions were found for cereals and dairy products, possibly because they are heterogeneous categories of foods with differential health effects, and for fish and seafood, the intake of which is low in this population."
Tags: Europe | North America | Nutrition & Healthy Eating | Traveller Health
Printer friendly page