The Mediterranean diet is a traditional diet eaten by populations that inhabit the regions around the Mediterranean sea. The diet consists largely of unrefined and minimally processed plant foods, along with dairy foods, eggs, poultry, red wine and occasional red meat. Epidemiological studies suggest that adherence to the Mediterranean diet is associated with improved health outcomes. Investigations into the biochemical and physiological effects of the diet show that adherence to such a diet can improve insulin sensitivity and decrease systemic inflammation, which themselves may be drivers of Western lifestyle diseases including obesity, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Longevity is also increased through adherence to the Mediterranean diet, which populations in Sicily having been shown to live longer than Western counterparts. Such populations also remain healthier into old age with little evidence of the age associated degeneration that is common in those who consume the typical Western diet.
Studies have investigated the associations between adherence to a Mediterranean style eating plan and disease. For example, in one study1 researchers created a 10-point scale that incorporated the main features of the Mediterranean diet, and used it to assign a score (from 0-9) to over 20,000 individual’s diet. Those with the most features of their diet in common with a traditional Mediterranean eating plan were allocated a score of 9, while those with the least characteristics were associated a score of 0. Following the scoring of the diets, the researchers followed the study population over a period of 44 months and during this time there were 275 deaths. A higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet, as indicated by a higher score, was associated with a reduction in the risk of total mortality. For each 2 point increase in the diet score, there was a hazard ratio of 0.75. Therefore increasing the similarity of the diet by two points towards the Mediterranean diet would decrease the relative risk of death by one quarter.
Further analysis of the deaths indicated that there was an inverse association between adherence to the Mediterranean diet and death from both cardiovascular disease and cancer. Analysis of individual foods showed that consumption of foods from the ‘fruit and nuts’ category was protective of total mortality. Likewise a high monounsaturated fatty acid to saturated fatty acid ratio in the diet was also protective of total mortality. However, there was no protective effects observed for any other individual food groups. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet therefore reduces the risk of total mortality, which may partly explain the longevity observed in the populations of the Mediterranean regions (particularly Sicily), when compared to populations consuming the typical Western diet. Including more fruits, nuts and monounsaturated rich olive oil into a typical Western diet might be an effective and relatively easy first step to improved health and longevity for those consuming a typical Western diet.
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