Research is accumulating that suggests the traditional saturated fat and cholesterol theory of cardiovascular disease is false. Instead, diet quality appears to be the overriding nutritional influence in the development of cardiovascular disease. The Mediterranean diet is a diet composed mainly of fatty fish, vegetables, whole grains, olives and fruit. These foods have been sown individually and collectively to be beneficial to the cardiovascular system through a variety of mechanisms. Fruit and vegetables are thought to protect from cardiovascular disease because they are good sources of potassium, fibre and a large number of phytonutrients that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory actions. Olives contain a number of compounds that have been investigated for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory actions in vivo, and these compounds become concentrated in the oil which explains the beneficial effects of virgin olive oil on cardiovascular disease.
Because of potential protective effect of sex hormones on cardiovascular disease, the association between fruit, vegetables and olive oil intakes and coronary heart disease (CHD) have been investigated1 in a study involving 29,689 women from Italy. Anthropometric and lifestyle characteristics were collected at baseline and the non-fatal and fatal myocardial infarction incidence collated through clinical records. From these records 144 coronary heart disease events were identified, and following adjustments for smoking, hypertension, education, menopause, physical activity, alcohol, non-alcohol energy, total meat and anthropometric measurements, the results showed that those women in the top quartile for leafy vegetables and olive oil had a significant reduced chance of CHD risk. These results are consistent with many other studies that have investigated the Mediterranean diet, but show that the diet is also beneficial for women, even though they are protected from cardiovascular disease by their sex hormone levels.
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