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What's behind Mediterranean diet and lower cardiovascular risk

medicalxpress.com

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Re: What's behind Mediterranean diet and lower cardiovascular risk

#21

Post by entity345 »

vahji wrote: post #18
entity345 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming that poorer means worse diet. That is simply not true at all in relation to having a healthy diet, and the opposite is perhaps true. In many places the traditional diet is healthy. Then, when people become richer they eat more, eat more meat, more fat, more sugar, more processed food, etc., and obesity and cardiovascular diseases shoot up.

As a poor person who's always been surrounded by poor people, you are wrong. Poor and less educated people know nothing about nutrition and don't have the money to buy good food. When you don't have the money you are forced to fill up with cheap calories like bread, rice, pasta, sugar, etc.

Nothing unhealthy with bread, rice, pasta...

In Sicily, as that is the example given, people are poorer than the European average and significantly poorer than the American average. Yet they have a healthier diet.

The issue of unhealthy diets in the US/Europe is not so much poverty but a culture of junk food and not knowing better.

Re: What's behind Mediterranean diet and lower cardiovascular risk

#22

Post by blunte »

jorvi wrote: post #19

I always feel apprehensive about ‘region X’s diet is the healthiest’ articles. To me, the strongest example for this is the Japanese diet. Whilst their diet is healthy in many ways, it also raises your risk for stomach cancer by quite a lot.

I agree that I think that diet is one significant part of a (probably complex) equation - not a single deciding factor.

But regarding Japanese stomach cancer... if you're saying they get stomach cancer more than others because of their diet, how do they still live so long? Do they also have a secret way of beating the cancer so it doesn't cut their lives short?

Re: What's behind Mediterranean diet and lower cardiovascular risk

#24

Post by alchemism »

I have friends in Athens, whom I visit. I’ve observed that most of the time they put their virgin olive oil on the food once it is done cooking. When asked about it they claimed that the oil is ‘full of healthy things that turn cancerous when burned.’

They rarely use extra-virgin to cook with, either.

Re: What's behind Mediterranean diet and lower cardiovascular risk

#25

Post by alchemism »

mrfusion wrote: post #14

I’ve always wondered if Americans can follow the Mediterranean diet with all the reports of our olive oil being conterfiets.

Just avoid Italian oil unless you know the source / trust the distributor. Spanish and Greek oils are better, in general.

Re: What's behind Mediterranean diet and lower cardiovascular risk

#26

Post by aero142 »

alchemism wrote: post #24

I have friends in Athens, whom I visit. I’ve observed that most of the time they put their virgin olive oil on the food once it is done cooking. When asked about it they claimed that the oil is ‘full of healthy things that turn cancerous when burned.’ They rarely use extra-virgin to cook with, either.

Extra virgin olive oil is the first press oil. It contains particulates that have a very low smoke point. You should not be cooking with extra virgin olive oil. Pure olive oil is a later hot press extraction and does not have the particulates. It has a much higher smoke point. Im not convinced that US stores are actually selling extra virgin olive oil anyway outside of specialty shops. Olive oil is supposed to be fresh and should taste spicy at first.

Re: What's behind Mediterranean diet and lower cardiovascular risk

#27

Post by yboris »

Here's a simple trick to avoid cardiovascular risk: any diet that reduces the amount of meat people consume. Overwhelming majority of Americans eat too much meat (with respect to health), so any diet that has less meat in it will on average improve their health. No surprise: https://nutritionfacts.org/2018/02/06/how-healthy-is-the-med...

Re: What's behind Mediterranean diet and lower cardiovascular risk

#29

Post by socratis »

"The team also explored why and how a Mediterranean diet might mitigate risk of heart disease and stroke by examining a panel of 40 biomarkers, representing new and established biological contributors to heart disease. ... The team saw changes in signals of

* inflammation (accounting for 29 percent of the cardiovascular disease risk reduction)

* glucose metabolism and insulin resistance (27.9 percent),

* and body max index (27.3 percent).

The team also found connections to blood pressure, various forms of cholesterol, branch-chain amino acids and other biomarkers, but found that these accounted for less of the association between Mediterranean diet and risk reduction."

The suggestion from the data being that inflammation and insulin resistance might be more important factors than the usual cholesterol panel that people tend to fixate on.

Re: What's behind Mediterranean diet and lower cardiovascular risk

#30

Post by yardie »

InGodsName wrote: post #2

What if it's not diet. I read somewhere that Silicy has higher life expectancy although it's poor (probably worse healthcare) in comparison to North Italy. Maybe it's not diet but the family values? Maybe being family focused increases life expectancy despite having not superior diet.

Sicily’s main industry is agriculture. So it is poorer financially because most are employed as manual labor. Diet wise it’s very hard to eat poorly. Fresh food is abundant and eating processed, frozen foods is considered a luxury.
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