Why Mediterranean Diet Foods?

As the Mediterranean Diet has risen in popularity, it has been the subject of much further study. And the results are very encouraging. It is not so much the diet itself, as the groups of foods it emphasizes, which have all proven to have outstanding health benefits. Here are just some of the amazing medical findings in recent years which boost the Mediterranean Diet's claims to fame:

Protecting from Developing Breast Cancer

Olive oil, it turns out, contains oleic acid as its main component. In a study at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago which studied the impact of oleic acid in laboratory studies of breast cancer cells, it was found that oleic acid blocks the action of a cancer-causing gene. This has not only implications for fighting breast cancer, but possibly other cancers as well.

Anti-Inflammatory Effects

Researchers from the Stanford School of Medicine in California studied the effect of the Mediterranean Diet on C-reactive proteins in the blood. C-reactive proteins are a marker of inflammation that has been tied to risk factors for heart disease, heart attack, and stroke.

In a study of subjects whose average age was 66 years, it was found that a Mediterranean diet, high in fruits and vegetables and low in saturated fats, lowers levels of inflammation in the elderly. The results were announced at the American Heart Association's 46th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology. The beneficial effects of the Mediterranean Diet are thought to be the anti-oxidant components of fruits and vegetables, whose anti-inflammatory effects are possibly the reason for its protective effect against cardiovascular disease.

In a related study done by the same team in 2005, it was revealed that olive oil also contains a painkilling compound similar to an ingredient found in over-the-counter medicines which treat inflammation. The compound has been dubbed oleocanthal. It turns out that taking 50g of extra-virgin olive oil will supply the subject with up to 200 micrograms of oleocanthal per day. This is roughly equivalent to ten percent of the recommended dose of ibuprofen for adult pain relief, which leads to a reduction in the risk of developing some kinds of cancer and of dangerous blood clotting.

Cutting the Risk of Alzheimer's

A finding was published in the early online addition of "Annals of Neurology" which concluded that a high adherence to the foods of the Mediterranean Diet is associated with decreased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. Adjustments to the subject's stats made for age, ethnicity, education, genetic factors linked to Alzheimer's disease, and caloric intake didn't even change the results.

Those with a medium adherence to the diet were 15% less likely to have been found to have developed Alzheimer's disease, and those who adhered to the diet rigorously were 40% less likely to have been found to have Alzheimer's disease. The novel approach of this study is that the researchers looked at the combination of foods of the diet, since people do not consume dietary elements in isolation, but only as part of their overall diet. When researchers looked at individual elements of the diet, they could not detect the beneficial effect. When they looked at all of them together, the effect was there and it was quite prominent.