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Old September 22nd, 2004, 05:13 PM
Roman Bystrianyk
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Default We should all eat like a Mediterranean

http://www.healthsentinel.com/news.p...st_item&id=264

Liz Szabo,, "We should all eat like a Mediterranean", USA Today,
September 22, 2004,
Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...ean-usat_x.htm

Two new studies confirm the health benefits of eating the
Mediterranean way.

In a study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association,
mortality rates were 65% lower among elderly people who combined a
so-called Mediterranean diet with 30 minutes of daily exercise,
moderate drinking and no tobacco use.

Although experts say there is no single Mediterranean diet, doctors
say cuisines from these regions favor olive oil rather than butter and
include lots of legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, vegetables and
potatoes but little meat and dairy.

The study was conducted from 1988 to 2000 and led by researchers at
Wageningen University in the Netherlands and other European
universities. More than 2,300 healthy people ages 70 to 90 answered
questions about their eating habits and activities. Researchers noted
that the study suggests a strong association between healthy habits
and longer life but offers no proof.

In a separate study in the same journal, researchers from the Second
University of Naples in Italy found that Mediterranean-style diets
helped patients with "metabolic syndrome," which increases the risk of
heart disease and diabetes and affects 1 in 4 American adults.

People with the syndrome are fat around the middle, have high blood
pressure and cholesterol deposits in their arteries, and do not
properly process glucose. After two years, 44% of those on the
Mediterranean diet still had features of metabolic syndrome, compared
with 86% of others.

This research confirms the results of earlier studies, experts say. A
previous study of heart-attack survivors showed that the mortality
rate was 70% lower among those who followed a prescribed Mediterranean
diet compared with people on a low-fat diet.

"The Mediterranean experience makes it clear that healthy eating is
completely consistent with wonderful eating," says Walter Willett,
chairman of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Yet getting more Americans to adopt healthy living will be a
challenge, says Dario Giugliano, an author of the metabolic syndrome
study. Experts say only 1 in 5 Americans eat the recommended five to
nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day.