Health Dept Magazine Health Dept Magazine

1. Melissa Andrews
   July 27th, 2011 - 09:35

   The Mediterranean Diet
   This misconceptions about olive oil arose from what is popularly known as the Mediterranean diet – widely quoted as a heart-healthy diet. Dr Joel Fuhrman, in Eat to Live, explains that in the 1950s, on the Mediterranean (especially the island of Crete), people were lean and virtually free of heart disease. Yet over 40 percent of their caloric intake came from fat, primarily olive oil. If we look at the diet they consumed back then, we note that the Cretans ate mostly fruits, vegetables, beans, and some fish.

   Saturated fat was less than six percent of their total fat intake. True, they ate lots of olive oil, but the rest of their diet was exceptionally healthy. They also worked hard in the fields, walking about nine miles a day, often pushing a plow or working other manual farm equipment. Americans didn’t take home the message to eat loads of vegetables, beans, and fruits and do loads of exercise; they assumed that olive oil is a heart healthy food.

   This assumption fuelled a study known as the Lyons Diet Heart Study, conducted by a group of French scientists headed by Dr. Michel de Lorgeril of Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble.

   Esselystyn explains that participants on the study <b>reduced</b> their overall fat consumption and increased their consumption of fruit, fresh salads, vegetables and whole grains, while limiting their consumption of dairy products and meat. Their diet thus included an average of 30% of calories from fat, what the American Heart Association describes as comparable to what is typically consumed in the United States.

   Researchers found that the participants (all of whom had suffered a first heart attack) were doing much better than the control group (who continued eating as before). In fact, those on the experimental diet were 50-70% less likely to experience the cardiac ailments the researchers recorded. The study’s results were attractive to mainstream media and spawned a media furore, including cookbooks, magazine and newspaper articles etc.

   However, what the media ignores is that by the end of the Lyon Diet Heart Study, nearly four years after its start, fully 25% of the subjects on the Mediterranean Diet had either died or experienced some new cardiovascular event.
   Furhrman points out that today, more than half the population of both adults and children in Crete is overweight and heart disease has skyrocketed. The Cretans still eat large amounts of olive oil, but their consumption of fruit, vegetables and beans is down. Meat, fish and cheese are their new staples and their physical activity level has plummeted.

   The Mediterranean Diet looked better than ours because of the increased consumption of vegetation, not because of the oil, Fuhrman concludes. People who use olive oil generally put it on vegetables such as salads and tomatoes, so its use is correlated with higher consumption of produce. Their diets were better, in spite of the oil consumption, not because of it.

   Even two of the most enthusiastic proponents of the Mediterranean diet, epidemiologist Martin Katan of the Wageningan Agricultural University in the Netherlands and Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, concede that the Mediterranean diet is viable only for people who are close to their ideal weight.

   How can a diet revolving around a fattening, nutrient-deficient food like oil be healthy? Asks Fuhrman. Ounce for ounce, olive oil is one of the most fattening, calorically dense foods on the planet. The bottom line is that oil will add fat to our already plump waistlines, heightening the risk of disease, including diabetes and heart attacks.

   Caldwell Esselstyn agrees, stating that between 14 and 17% of olive oil is saturated, artery-clogging fat, every bit as aggressive in promoting heart disease as the saturated fat in roast beef. And while a Mediterranean style diet that allows such oils may slow the rate of progression of coronary heart disease when compared with diets even higher in saturated fat, it does not arrest the disease and reverse its effects. In other words, we can do better.
   Dr. Colin Campbell, author of the China Study, when asked to compare to results of the Lyon Diet Study with those he found when studying health and nutrition in rural China (where coronary heart disease is practically nonexistent) said: “The Mediterranean and rural Chinese diets are practically the same, I would say the absence of oil in the rural Chinese diet is the reason for their superior success”.
2. Gronarix
   July 27th, 2011 - 09:35

   If it helps you lose weight, odds are it isn’t going to help your brain.

   Your brain is made of fat, muscle, and water, which are all lost during weight loss.
3. Mrmr Mrmrmr
   July 27th, 2011 - 09:35

   Well i grew up with a mom that is a nutrition professor so i think i have the right to say that NO PRE-PLANNED DIETS WORK you need to see a nutritionist for a well designed HEALTHY "diet" and by "diet" i mean eating plan but NEVER starve yourself or anything even remotely similar to that! and for the omega three and what ever it does to your heart, im extremely sure that you could get everything that that "diet" can offer with everyday foods.
4. CuriosityKilledTheCat
   July 27th, 2011 - 09:35

   People from the meditaranian eat lots of fresh vegetables and produce as they have the climate and environment to do so. As a lot of these countries are near the sea they also eat a lot of seafood and fish, fish contains a high amount of omega three which can increase brain concentration and has other benefits such as for your heart : )

   A lot of their vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, blueberries, oranges are high in vitamins, especially vitamin C.

   Because they rarely eat processed food everything is much more healthier : )

   Google some meditaranian recipes, or have a look for meditaranian cooking books if you’re still interested!

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