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What is a healthy diet? There are so many sources of conflicting
advice it is hard to know. Even health professionals cannot
always agree. One sound piece of advice is to avoid being
overweight and exercise regularly as these two factors improve
vascular health and prevent diabetes. It is often said that
a Mediterranean diet helps improve vascular wellbeing more
than other diets. But what is a Mediterranean diet and why
is it considered so beneficial?
Ancel Keys, American biologist come nutritionist and epidemiologist,
led the renowned Seven Countries Study, which investigated
the relationship between coronary heart disease and diet in
Italy, Greece, former Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Finland,
United States, and Japan. The conclusion that the Mediterranean
diet is best came from this study as the men of Crete in the
1960s had a 90% lower level of deaths from premature heart
disease than men in the United States. Based on these findings
the “Cretan diet” of that time is thought to be
the Mediterranean diet providing the best prescription for
a healthy heart.
The Cretan diet of the 1960s was a diet based mainly on
fruit and vegetables, breads and grains, beans, nuts and seeds.
Processed food was not part of the diet, and foods with added
sugar were rarely eaten. Olive oil was used as the principal
fat, replacing all other fats and oils (up to 25 – 35%
of calories came from olive oil). Low to moderate amounts
of cheese and yoghurt were eaten daily. Eggs were eaten once
or twice per week or not at all. Fish and poultry were eaten
about twice per week. Red meat was eaten only once or twice
per month. One to two glasses of local wine were consumed
with meals.
Although the nutritious nature of this diet is generally
accepted, particularly because of the low level of harmful
foods that are high in saturated fats, the benefit from drinking
wine as part of a typical Mediterranean diet is not yet fully
understood. Daily red wine consumption has been widely attributed
as the factor explaining the “French paradox”;
where the people of France have a relatively low level of
heart disease despite eating foods that contain high amounts
of saturated fat.
The William Harvey Research Foundation is supporting
research to reveal whether the claims for the health benefits
of red wine are justified. This research is also investigating
whether cranberry or pomegranate juice, or grape seed extract
are suitable alternatives to red wine. Funding for diet studies
in volunteers is urgently needed so that the benefit of these
alcohol-free alternatives to red wine can be carefully tested
in clinical trials.
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