The health benefits of Mediterranean food
The traditional Mediterranean diet is characterized by a high intake of vegetables, legumes, fruits and nuts, and cereals, and a high intake of olive oil but a low intake of saturated lipids, a moderately high intake of fish, a low-to-moderate intake of dairy products (and then mostly in the form of cheese or yogurt, which contain friendly bacterial probiotics), a low intake of meat and poultry, and a regular but moderate intake of wine.
In research, an greater adherence to Mediterranean diet was associated with lower death rates due to coronary heart disease and death due to cancer. There was no associations between any single food groups of the Mediterranean diet and total mortality, so it's a sum of the diet features that seems to work.
The diet is often cited as beneficial for being low in saturated fat and high in monounsaturated fat and dietary fiber
One of the main explanations is thought to be the health effects of olive oil included in the Mediterranean diet.
The Mediterranean diet is high in salt content, Foods such as olives, salt-cured cheeses, anchovies, capers, salted fish roe, and salads dressed with olive oil all contain high levels of salt. Salt is particularly important for salads dressed with virgin olive oil, because the antioxidants it contains are slightly bitter.
A study published in Archives of General Psychiatry shows that people who followed the Mediterranean diet, an eating regimen that is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, and nuts, were less likely to develop depression
Red Wine: the consumption of red wine is considered a possible factor, as it contains flavonoids with powerful antioxidant properties.
Dietary factors may be only part of the reason for the health benefits enjoyed by these cultures. Genetics, lifestyle and environment may also be involved.
The putative benefits of the Mediterranean diet for cardiovascular health are primarily correlative in nature; while they reflect a real disparity in the geographic incidence of heart disease, identifying the causal determinant of this disparity has proven difficult. The most popular dietary candidate, olive oil, has been undermined by a body of experimental evidence that diets enriched in monounsaturated fats such as olive oil are not protective when compared to diets enriched in either polyunsaturated or even saturated fats.
|
