The Mediterranean Diet and Your Health

The Mediterranean diet has long been celebrated as the gold standard of healthy diets for its highly palatable nature and favorable impact on the prevention of chronic diseases, promotion of greater longevity, and quality of life. A large body of scientific evidence has accumulated over the past several decades showing that Mediterranean-type diets are highly protective against the development of cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and certain cancers. A single definition of the Mediterranean diet is difficult because of the diversity of dietary habits of more than the 18 countries with coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea. There are, however, general food patterns that unify the variable diets of the Mediterranean people and reflect the more traditional eating pattern of the southern Mediterranean region during the early 1960s. Dr Ancel Keys wrote of this diet in his first book on the topic, titled How to Eat Well and Stay Well the Mediterranean Way, as a diet that provides clues for why the health profile of the Mediterranean countries was more favorable than the rest of the world during that period. The Mediterranean eating pattern warrants attention because this eating style has been repeatedly associated with protection against several chronic degenerative diseases and disorders. Although it is not clear yet which components of the diet provide the greatest health benefits, likely candidates have emerged in the literature that, when consumed collectively, provide a dietary pattern that is highly protective. Several potential explanations and biological mechanisms of action against the pathogenesis of chronic disease that these foods provide are reviewed.