Do not get your hopes up, do not pass GO! do not collect $200. The Mediterranean Diet. Fail.
Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet (Estruch et al., 2013)
This is one of the biggest diet studies we’ve seen in a while, and no doubt it was a very good one. It very effectively put the Mediterranean Diet to the test.
I felt compelled to write about this study out of fear for the nutrition disinformation that it would likely inspire. The Mediterranean Diet is associated with all good things, happiness, red wine and olive oil; whereas the Atkins Diet is associated with artery clogging bacon-wrapped hot dogs and a fat guy who died of a heart attack. Nutrition disinformation.
If you ran a diet study with 3 intervention groups for 5 years, and by the end of the study everybody (in all 3 groups) was on more prescription medications, would you conclude any of the diets were “healthy?” If so, then we should work on your definition of “healthy.”
Study details: big study, lasted roughly 5 years, and the diet intervention was pristine. Mediterranean diet plus extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) vs. Mediterranean diet plus nuts vs. low fat control. They even used biomarkers to confirm olive oil and nut intake (hydroxytyrosol and linoleate, respectively). Compliance was good.