Title

 

Authors

D. Giugliano, K. Esposito

Dipartimento di Geriatria e Malattie del Metabolismo, Dipartimento di Scienze Cardio-Toraciche e Respiratorie, Seconda Università di Napoli

 

Abstract

The Mediterranean diet (MD) has been proposed as a healthy eating dietary pattern based on evidence that greater adherence to this diet is associated with lower all-cause and disease-specific mortality. Dietary patterning analysis has been increasingly used as an alternative method to traditional single-nutrient analysis because it can assess cumulative effects of the overall diet. Although there is not one Mediterranean diet, a high consumption of foods of vegetable origin, such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, cereals, and whole-grains; olive oil as the principal source of fat; fish and poultry consumed in low-to-moderate amounts; relatively low consumption of red meat; and moderate consumption of wine, normally with meals, could be considered the most dominant characteristics of this dietary pattern that has been initially observed in the upper Mediterranean basin in the 1950s and 1960s.MD  is one of the most known and well-studied dietary patterns, which has been shown to be associated with human health, especially decreased mortality from all causes, lower risk for cardiovascular disease, and cancer; it is also exerting a beneficial role with regard to type 2 diabetes and obesity. Adherence to MD has a positive effect on human health through different ways: MD has a beneficial effect on abdominal obesity, lipids levels, glucose metabolism, and blood pressure levels, all the components of the metabolic syndrome, which are also risk factors for the development of cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, and diabetes. The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of MD as a whole as well as the effects of the individual components of the MD and specifically olive oil, fruits and vegetables,
whole grains, and fish could offer a possible explanation for the aforementioned findings.