The Mediterranean Diet is a basic practice that goes along with a healthy food pattern, including mainly fruit, vegatables, fish, whole grains, low in red meat, the use of olive oil and moderation of red wine (Wine ~ a big wow here!)
A new article by Washington Post further reiterated the goods of the diet, siting that its benefits go beyond just heart issue. It reports that 12 studies, basing on staggering 1.6 million people that being monitored for up to 18 years about their diet habits, had shown data that those people whom practiced the Mediterranean diet had less likelihood to develop chronic disease.
It further claims that "Specifically, people who most strictly followed the diet were 9 percent less likely to have died from cardiovascular disease, 6 percent less likely to have a cancer diagnosis and 13 percent less likely to have developed Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease than were those whose eating patterns weren't in line with the diet..."
The American Heart Association points out that the Mediteranean diet is close to what the Association recommends on dietary practices. The one thing that the Mediteranean diet is apparently different, is the higher intake in calories from fat - the diet has more than half of the fat intake from monounsaturated fats.
Maybe a personalized Mediterranean diet that goes lower in fat intake will be an ideal one?
