Traditional Mediterranean cooks have no such problem, pounding them into pastes to thicken sauces and stews, tossing them into salads, bread and cakes – or simply nibbling a bowlful, with a glass of something cold, to sharpen the appetite before a meal.
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“All-cause death was significantly reduced both in the people following the medium-level [Mediterranean diet], but especially in people who followed faithfully the Mediterranean diet”, de Gaetano added.
In most clinical research to date, cholesterol-lowering medication like statins has been pushed as the most effective way to target heart disease, which is responsible for the deaths of 10,000 people in Ireland every year, roughly 33% of all deaths in the country.
The latest figures from the British Heart Foundation show cardiovascular disease causes more than 27 per cent of all deaths in the United Kingdom – around 155,000 deaths each year. The patients were among the participants enrolled into the Moli-sani project, a prospective epidemiological study that randomly recruited around 25 000 adults living in the Italian region of Molise.
Dr Richard Kidd, a Brisbane-based GP, says diet and exercise are always recommended for people at low risk of cardiovascular disease. A key element of the Mediterranean diet is omega-3 fatty acids, found in oily fish, flax seed, walnuts and pulses. All-cause death was assessed by linkage with data from the office of vital statistics in Molise. During a median follow-up of just over seven years, 208 died. A 2-point increase in the MDS was associated with a 21 per cent reduced risk of death after controlling for age, sex, energy intake, egg and potato intake, education, leisure-time physical activity, waist to hip ratio, smoking, hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia, diabetes and cancer at baseline. The research found that people who consume a diet rich in vegetables, nuts, fish and oils were 37% less likely to die early, compared with peers whose diet consists of fat-rich foods like butter and red meat. The researchers noticed that those who followed Mediterranean diet were at low risk to die.
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But de Gaetano had some advice for doctors in the meantime. “We expect that dietary effects on mediators common to chronic diseases such as inflammation might result in the reduction of mortality from any cause but further research is needed”.
