rbystrianyk

http://www.healthsentinel.com/news.php?event=news_print_list_item&id=264

Liz Szabo,, "We should all eat like a Mediterranean", USA Today,
September 22, 2004,
Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-09-21-mediterranean-usat_x.htm

Two new studies confirm the health benefits of eating the
Mediterranean way.

In a study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association,
mortality rates were 65% lower among elderly people who combined a
so-called Mediterranean diet with 30 minutes of daily exercise,
moderate drinking and no tobacco use.

Although experts say there is no single Mediterranean diet, doctors
say cuisines from these regions favor olive oil rather than butter and
include lots of legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, vegetables and
potatoes but little meat and dairy.

The study was conducted from 1988 to 2000 and led by researchers at
Wageningen University in the Netherlands and other European
universities. More than 2,300 healthy people ages 70 to 90 answered
questions about their eating habits and activities. Researchers noted
that the study suggests a strong association between healthy habits
and longer life but offers no proof.

In a separate study in the same journal, researchers from the Second
University of Naples in Italy found that Mediterranean-style diets
helped patients with "metabolic syndrome," which increases the risk of
heart disease and diabetes and affects 1 in 4 American adults.

People with the syndrome are fat around the middle, have high blood
pressure and cholesterol deposits in their arteries, and do not
properly process glucose. After two years, 44% of those on the
Mediterranean diet still had features of metabolic syndrome, compared
with 86% of others.

This research confirms the results of earlier studies, experts say. A
previous study of heart-attack survivors showed that the mortality
rate was 70% lower among those who followed a prescribed Mediterranean
diet compared with people on a low-fat diet.

"The Mediterranean experience makes it clear that healthy eating is
completely consistent with wonderful eating," says Walter Willett,
chairman of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Yet getting more Americans to adopt healthy living will be a
challenge, says Dario Giugliano, an author of the metabolic syndrome
study. Experts say only 1 in 5 Americans eat the recommended five to
nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

alan wright

It doesn't matter if we start eating like (some type of) Mediterranean or
not.
Could just as well be Chinese, Masai, or any other traditional diet of whole
nutritious foods. The important thing is to QUIT EATING LIKE AN AMERICAN
(fast food, processed food, sugar, trans fat, no nutrients, empty calories,
too many
carbs, etc...).

Alan

rosescripter

Little dairy? Really? Then what do the mediterraneans do with all
the cheese they make? Export it? Feed it to the dogs?

matti narkia

22 Sep 2004 16:01:54 -0700 in article
<5c7896da.0409221501.36877ebd@posting.google.com > rosescripter@yahoo.com

The best example of Mediterranean diet is the traditional Cretan diet, which
contains relatively low amount of dairy products. Only fermented dairy
products, feta cheese and yoghurt made of goat or sheep milk are used. And
yes, Mediterranean countries do export cheese.

--
Matti Narkia

matti narkia

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 02:17:13 +0300 in article
<3m14l0d3d89beofcrq5nv7d4fmu0j4hsgt@4ax.com> Matti Narkia


There is an interesting comment about cheese in thearticle

Serge Renaud: from French paradox to Cretan miracle.
Lancet 2000; 355: 48 - 52.
<URL:http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol355/iss9197/full/llan.355.9197.news.2419.1>

"Renaud's answer is simple. The participants in the Lyon
study ate like Cretans: no butter, cream, or milk; lots of
vegetables, fruit, bread, and cereals; and little meat. For
the study, Renaud designed a margarine similar in
composition to olive oil, but enriched in alpha-linolenic
acid. Patients ate cheese ("a 9000 year old invention not
linked to coronary disease") and, of course, drank wine.
Other linolenic acid-rich ingredients of the Cretan diet--
walnuts, snails, and purslane--were replaced by his
margarine. Although linolenic acid's protective effects have
been corroborated in other studies, Ducimetière warns that
"the extraordinary [Lyon] results await confirmation"."

See also

de Lorgeril M, Renaud S, Mamelle N, Salen P, Martin JL, Monjaud I,
Guidollet J, Touboul P, Delaye J.
Mediterranean alpha-linolenic acid-rich diet in secondary prevention of
coronary heart disease.
Lancet. 1994 Jun 11;343(8911):1454-9. Erratum in: Lancet 1995 Mar
18;345(8951):738.
PMID: 7911176 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
<URL:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=791117 6&dopt=Abstract>

de Lorgeril M, Salen P, Martin J-L, Monjaud I, Delaye J, Mamelle N:
Mediterranean diet, traditional risk factors and the rate of
cardiovascular complications after myocardial infarction. Final report of
the Lyon Diet Heart Study.
Circulation 1999, February 16, 99:779-785
<URL:http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/99/6/779>

Leaf A.
Dietary prevention of coronary heart disease: the Lyon Diet Heart Study.
Circulation. 1999 Feb 16;99(6):733-5.
<URL:http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/99/6/733>

--
Matti Narkia

dropped 21

I think this would depend on WHICH Mediterrenean! (coming from a
Mediterranean family I know of what I speak!!)

kevin stevens

What a useless freaking study! How much lower was the mortality rate
among elderly people who combined ANY diet plan or WOE with 30 minutes
of daily exercise, moderate drinking, and no tobacco use?!

Don't like your initial results? Keep adding factor elements until you
see a number you like. Ridiculous.

KeS

matti narkia

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 00:37:06 GMT in article
<SUo4d.1195$6X1.3308910@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> "Dropped 21"

Like an average Cretan used to eat in 1960s and earlier (ok, we might not be
able to get purslane and Cretan snails, but following the main principles of
the traditional Cretan diet would probably be a healthy choice for the vast
majority of people in modern western societies).


--
Matti Narkia

trader4

I wouldn't blast the study based on short excerpts from news
organizations. The news usually goes for the simple, easy, overall
message. If you look at the actual study, it was done to determine the
effects of the diet, excercise, moderate drinking, no smoking, both
together and seperately. It appears to be well designed and covered a
10 year period. There were benefits to all components, the combined
effect was just the best result.

bob in ct

But without data like true mortality (not the BS "relational" mortality),
the study is useless. It's like the study that gave two drugs to two
different groups of people. The average LDL level dropped farther with
one drug, and the relative number of deaths due to heart disease also
dropped farther with that drug. The authors said that this "proved" that
lowering LDL was beneficial, when that's not what the study proved at
all. (What it indicated was that if you took one drug and not another
your relative risk of heart disease was lower.) Without access to the
real data, none of us know what the results of this study are.

--
Bob in CT
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