Mediterranean Diet

Basics

The Mediterranean diet is nothing new. People who live in the European countries around the Mediterranean Sea (France, Spain, Greece, and Italy) have less heart disease and cancer than people who live in the US or Northern Europe. The idea is that following the dietary patterns of the people who live in this region would improve cardiovascular health.

What to Eat

The Mediterranean diet plan is not really a set-in-stone formula for eating. Those who try this plan try to follow general principles:

• Eat a lot of plant foods

• Eat fresh and no processed foods

• Dessert is typically fresh fruit with sweets coming from nuts, olive oil, honey or other concentrated sugars

• Use olive oil as the main source of fat

• Eat only low to moderate amounts of dairy products

• Less than 4 eggs per week

• Low amount of red meat

• Low to moderate amounts of wine with meals

Dr. Walter Willett, the chair of the department of nutrition at Harvard, has written a book called Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy which outlines the main elements. Several Mediterranean diet recipes and cookbooks can be found online.

How Much Weight Will I Lose?

This is virtually impossible to predict for any one person. Obviously, the better you stick with a diet, the more weight you will lose. However, studies have looked at the average amount of weight loss on the plan. People tend to lose the most weight after 6 months of dieting and then regain some weight, leveling off after 2 years.

One study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that after 2 years, people lost 9.7 lbs on average. Most of these people were men who lost 8.8 lbs on the Mediterranean plan and 10.8 lbs on the Atkins (low-carb) diet. Women in the study lost 13.6 lbs on the Mediterranean diet and 5.3 lbs on the Atkins diet. It appears that Women do particularly well on the Mediterranean diet plan. Men also do well, but appear to lose more weight on the Atkins diet.

Other Health Benefits

• Cholesterol improvements: Good (or HDL) cholesterol increases and the ratio off good to bad (or LDL) cholesterol improves.

• Inflammation and body chemicals: Certain chemical markers tell doctors if there is inflammation in the body, even a long term low level inflammation. These chemical markers will decrease on the diet, indicating reduced inflammation. Some chemicals also associated with fat tissue are deceased.

• Blood sugar: Diabetics end up having lower blood sugars. People with diabetes and those without have lower levels of insulin, indicating their bodies no longer need as much.

• Liver function: Liver enzymes can go up when the liver has extra stress placed on it. One of these enzymes, ALT, decreased with the Mediterranean diet.

• Cancer: People have less death from cancer and risk of developing cancer.

• Heart attacks: There is less risk of having and dying from a heart attack.

Comments

The Mediterranean diet is an overall healthy diet with more fruits and vegetables and less animal and processed products. Commonsense would tell us that this is a healthy diet, which scientific research has shown to be true. However, people the world over are moving away from such a diet. The Mediterranean diet menu was based off of what people in the above countries ate in the 1960s. Undoubtedly, they do not eat the same today. Industrialized countries who can afford to buy less healthy and more easily prepared foods should take some lessons from the past.
 

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It is important you discuss any weigh loss or exercise plan with your doctor. Only you and your physician can decide what is best for you. Some people have certain conditions that prevent them from doing all exercises, and goal body weights may be different for different people. You need to discuss all these things with your physician before starting any weight loss or exercise program.

This article was written by John Vickery, MD.

References
N Engl J Med 2008;359:229-41
Nutr Rev. 2006 Feb;64(2 Pt 2):S27-47
BMJ 2008;337:a1344
"Walter Willett" http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/walter-willett/ accessed on 9/26/08