Take It or Leave It? The Truth About 8 Mediterranean Diet Staples

From ABC News online

Among the legion of today’s most popular diet regimens, the Mediterranean diet has become a poster child for healthy eating, garnering praise from nutrition experts and home gourmets alike.

Researchers identify foods that help people live well into old age.

But while few would dispute the health benefits of such a diet, what is it about the Mediterranean menu that makes it so healthy?

A study released Tuesday in the online edition of the British Medical Journal took aim at this very question. Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and the University of Athens Medical School in Greece looked at more than 23,000 Greek men and women participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Over the course of about eight and a half years, the researchers led by Harvard’s Dimitrios Trichopoulos and the University of Athens’ Antonia Trichopoulou compared the health of the participants against their adherence to a Mediterranean diet.

What they found was that certain foods in the diet, more than others, may offer the bulk of the nutritional benefits of the regimen.

MODERATE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION HAS STRONGEST BENEFIT

“Regarding the components of the diet,the strongest association was regarding protection from moderate alcohol,” said Dr. Carl Lavie, medical director of Cardiac Rehabilitation and
Prevention at the Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute in New Orleans,
La..

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