The Mediterranean Diet - II

The study that indicates that indeed the Mediterranean diet does have a protective effect was published in Lancet, v 360, p1455 (2002). In this study, 1000 patients who had angina pectoris, myocardial infarction or other coronary artery disease risk factors, were randomly assigned to one of two diets. Half of them were assigned to a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains, walnuts and almonds ("intervention diet"); the other half were assigned to the National Cholesterol Education Program "prudent diet".

The patients on the intervention diet had their total cholesterol to HDL ratio decrease from 4.9 to 4.2. We recall from another section that this ratio correlates with a reduced CHD risk. In fact, the intervention diet reduces the total nuber of cardiac events by 0.51 (0.31 to 0.71 Margin of Error), compared to the "prudent diet". We might conclude that "prudent diet" is less prudent than the intervention diet!

Another direct measurement of the effect of a Mediterranean diet was determined in a study published in Circulation (v 99, p 779, 1999) that assigned one of two diets at random to patients who had a first heart attack (myocardial infarction). One diet was a Mediterranean-style diet, and the other - a "prudent" western-style diet. The study finds that the Mediterranean diet results in a risk reduction of 0.53 (Margin of Error between 0.38 to 0.74), even though the cholesterol levels and blood pressure are almost identical between the two groups.