I recommend the Mediterranean diet (MED) to my patients. Every unbiased, systematic review of the research on diet and heart disease in the last 8 years has concluded that it is the most likely dietary model to provide protection against coronary heart disease. One review concludes
Among the dietary exposures with strong evidence of causation from cohort studies, only a Mediterranean dietary pattern is related to CHD (coronary heart disease) in randomized trials.
The MED is the only comprehensive dietary approach that has been proven to reduce total death and heart attacks in comparison to standard diets. There are two major randomized controlled trials (the only kind of study that proves the value of a dietary intervention) with this diet.
The first, called the Lyon heart Study, was in patients who had had heart attacks (secondary prevention) . As this graph demonstrates, those patients randomized to receive instruction on following the Mediterranean diet had a 60% lower death rate and a 70% lower heart attack rate. The second was published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine and was a primary prevention study: that is, participants had not had heart attacks. Participants were randomized to one of three diets: a MED supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil, MED supplemented with mixed nuts or a control diet (advice to reduce dietary fat). Participants received quarterly individual and group educational sessions and either free provision of olive oil, mixed nuts or small nonfood gifts. The high extra virgin olive oil group ingested an average of 3.6 tablespoons/day (51 grams/day equal to 459 calories/day) of olive oil with 98% of it being extra virgin olive oil. The high nut group ate 8.2% of their total daily calories in the form of nuts, including an additional approximately one ounce packet of nuts (15g of walnuts, 7.5 g of almonds, and 7.5g of hazelnuts) provided by the study coordinators. 7447 persons were enrolled (ages 55 to 80 years) for an average 4.8 years. Those persons following the MED diet (either supplemented with olive oil or nuts) were 30% less likely to have a major cardiovascular event (heart attack, stroke or death from cardiovascular causes.) There was a statistically significant reduction in stroke rate (≈39%) when considered as an isolated endpoint. We don’t know exactly what components of the MED are the most beneficial. This trial suggests that olive oil and nuts are at least two of the key ingredient so it makes sense to increase your consumption of these foods. Other studies strongly support fish consumption and alcohol consumption as key components. As I’ve discussed (?ad nauseam) in other posts, full fat dairy and eggs, although banned by most “heart healthy diets”, have not been shown to increase heart disease risk. Fermented dairy consumption, in particular, in the form of plain full-fat yogurt (not adulterated with sugar) and full-fat cheese is consistently associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease. Plain full-fat yogurt and full-fat cheese (from goat milk) were consumed by the inhabitants of Crete, the Greek Island on which the original MED was based.
It has to be emphasized that within this pattern of eating you want to be consuming real foods, not processed products of the industrial food industry which have been manipulated to appear healthy due to being “low-fat” or “low cholesterol.”
This is a pattern of eating which is varied, interesting and sustainable.
It’s one that can last a lifetime. ,
