Mediterranean Diet Reduces Heart Disease Risk

What is “Mediterranean Diet”? Let’s show an example.

Taramosalata is a very well known in the Mediterranean Diet. It is a meze or mezze. Its ingredients include the following:

• Slices of dried bread without the crust 
• Tarama (preserved fish roe)
• Table spoons of Onion very finely chopped
• Fine olive oil or corn oil
• Lemon juice
• Spring onions, finely chopped
• Black olives for the garniture

You can see that it is rich in olive oil, fruit and onions, which are all good for our health. To illustrate this, we can use olive oil as an example.

In the past, the benefits of olive oil consumption have been attributed primarily to its oleic acid content. Now, it was found that its another constituent, hydroxytyrosol, might help protect against many of the usual manifestations of metabolic syndrome.

Already, the Mediterranean diet has been shown in a number of studies to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). A new study led by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Cambridge Health Alliance to follow the diet patterns of 780 male firefighters in the Midwest found that the diet can dramatically reduce the CVD risk in healthy young adults. 

After adjusting for other variables, higher adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet was inversely related to weight gain, body fat percentage, triglycerides, and total cholesterol to HDL ratio. 

Adherence to a Mediterranean diet was also independently associated with higher HDL levels. Subjects with the greatest adherence to the Mediterranean diet had a 35 percent lower risk of metabolic syndrome and a 43 percent lower risk of weight gain compared with subjects with the lowest level of adherence.