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In the Mediterranean diet, even some fats are healthy
Our diet affects your health and therefore your life expectancy. According to experts, a healthy diet should not contain too many calories and only little sugar, salt and fat. But fat can also do good health, at least as part of the Mediterranean diet.
The healthy Mediterranean cuisine
Experts repeatedly emphasize the benefits of healthy Mediterranean cuisine. Italian, Spanish or Portuguese dishes are not only delicious, they also often have a positive impact on our health because of the ingredients.
Just recently, medical experts in the journal European Heart Journal reported that a Mediterranean diet protects against heart attacks and strokes in cardiovascular disease. And Canadian scientists proved that this diet also protects the memory.
Scientific research has repeatedly demonstrated the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. You do not even have to do without fat. (Image: volff / fotolia.com) Not even fat you have to do without
Especially positive: To reduce his risk of heart attack, diabetes and cancer, you do not even have to do without fat in a Mediterranean diet. Scientists led by Hanna Bloomfield of the Minneapolis VA Medical Center have now collated and analyzed the current evidence.
As the "Ärzte Zeitung" reported, they focused on studies that examined the effect of a Mediterranean diet without general fat restriction in primary and secondary prevention. Their findings were recently published in the journal "Annals of Internal Medicine".
High fat content with nuts and olive oil supplements
The study included the results of the PREDIMED study (Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea), a study from Spain with 7,447 men and women aged 55 to 80 years. The fat content of the Mediterranean diet, supplemented with either nuts or virgin olive oil, was up to 40 percent of the daily energy requirement.
The risk of subjects with severe cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack or stroke, decreased by 29 percent relative to the control group, which was encouraged to eat a low-fat diet. The risk of type 2 diabetes was also 30 percent lower. On the total mortality, this diet had no effect.
Breast cancer risk is lowered
Furthermore, in the PREDIMED study with Mediterranean diet, the risk of breast cancer was also reduced by 57 percent. There is also evidence that this diet can reduce the risk of other types of tumors. Whether Mediterranean diet can prevent cognitive disorders and dementia is not clear.
Although there is a study that suggests that the median diet could reduce the incidence of mild cognitive disorders by about 50 percent, another study found no association.
Better than a low-fat diet
Another analysis of the PREDIMED study, published in the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, also showed that a Mediterranean diet rich in vegetable fat from olive oil or nuts reduces body weight better than a low-fat diet.
As with most nutritional studies, however, some questions remain. Since many new findings come from the PREDIMED study, which looked at the effect of Mediterranean diet in high-risk patients, it is not clear whether their results can be reproduced in other populations.
Moreover, since there is no clear and generally accepted consensus on the definition of the Mediterranean diet, such comparisons are difficult to interpret. The authors of the current study also point out that it should be examined whether the observed effects are attributable to individual components of the Mediterranean diet or to the overall composition. (Ad)