Mediterranean-Style Diet Reduces Cancer And Heart Disease Risk

People who eat a Mediterranean-style diet rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains, olive oil and fish have at least a 25 percent reduced risk of dying from heart disease and cancer, researchers reported in a study being published today.

For decades, scientists have had inklings that a diet that derives about 40 percent of its calories from healthy fat and about half from complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, fruit and vegetables, combined with daily exercise, could promote health and reduce premature death.

But this is the first large trial of healthy men and women to demonstrate a significant reduction in death rates for heart disease, cancer and all other causes of mortality for those who follow a Mediterranean diet and are physically active.

‘In the past, when we talked about the Mediterranean diet, we usually talked about cardiovascular benefits,’ Frank Hu, associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said yesterday. ‘This is talking about primary prevention. The better the Mediterranean diet, the lower the cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality. . . . That is very intriguing.’

The results suggest a middle course between the often confusing diet extremes, from the very low-carbohydrate, high-fat Atkins approach to the higher carbohydrate, low-fat U.S. dietary guidelines. Read more

Good diet in USA influenced by education level, not earning level of people

For healthy diet, learning level counts more than earning level

Americans are eating healthier diets than they did in 1965, but college-educated people are doing better than high school dropouts, new research indicates.

That may seem obvious, but it wasn’t the case in 1965. Then, people who had not finished high school, those who were high school graduates and those who went to college all had about the same level of diet quality.

But a more recent survey by Barry Popkin, Ph.D., and colleagues from the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that while dietary quality has improved overall, those with more education now have much healthier diets.

‘In fact, the gap in diet between higher educated persons and lower educated persons may explain the large disparity in health between higher and lower socioeconomic groups in the United States,’ Popkin says.

The research is published in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Popkin emphasized that this study examined the composition of the diet, not energy intake or obesity. Read more

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