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It's the wine. Medical researchers teased out the ingredients to see what exactly contributes to longevity. |
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By Val Ulene
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Friday, 18 September 2009 |
20:32 |
A diet high in nuts, fruits and vegetables is great. But don't forget the red wine.
Its health benefits are well established. The Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of a variety of chronic conditions, from cardiovascular disease and diabetes to Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. And, study after study has found that adherence to the diet can actually help you live longer.
But which foods, exactly, are the key ingredients to better health? Researchers from the University of Athens Medical School in Greece and the Harvard School of Public Health were determined to figure that out.
Their new study attempted to tease apart the relative importance of the diet’s individual components. The results were published in June in the British Medical Journal.
The study’s researchers followed more than 23,000 Greek adult men and women for more than eight years. Participants completed a food survey at the outset that focused on nine dietary components that together make up the Mediterranean diet. These include high intakes of fruits/nuts, vegetables, legumes, cereals, and fish/seafood; low intakes of meat and dairy; and moderate intake of alcohol. As far as fats go, the diet includes a comparatively high intake of unsaturated fats (like olive oil) relative to their saturated counterparts.
Over the study period, 4% of the men and women who adhered to the diet closely died compared to 5% of those who didn't follow the diet. Using the dietary information that had been collected, researchers calculated the benefit of each component of the diet.
What had the biggest impact? The alcohol. The study found that 24% of the benefit on mortality could be attributed to moderate alcohol consumption. Roughly 17% of the benefit stemmed from low meat consumption and 16% from high vegetable consumption; high fruit and nut consumption, high legume consumption, as well as a high ratio of unsaturated to saturated fats each contributed about approximately 10%.
Comparatively, the consumption of cereals, dairy products, and fish and seafood had little effect on mortality.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 November 2009 06:53 |
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