Mediterranean Diet isn’t always healthy
We’ve been told the Mediterranean Diet is healthy and that we should all try to follow this diet, but it’s actually unhealthy if people aren’t eating quality olive oil, are consuming too much olive oil (regardless of quality), if the food contains pesticides, if people aren’t eating whole grains, and/or are consuming too many calories (1). This study, from the Italian Research Institute IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Mediterraneo Neuromed, of 18,000 people from southern Italy from 3/2005 to 4/2010 also showed that those who ate more fish and drank a moderate amount of alcohol were the healthiest of the bunch (1).
P.S. The recent revelation in the news about a flawed Mediterranean study’s results being retracted, was a different study (not the one mentioned above) in Spain with only 7447 people. The results from that study revealed that a Med Diet reduces heart disease. Even though that study had quality-control issues, it is still generally recognized that a Med Diet is good for heart health (2).
Sources: (1) Scutti, Susan. “The Mediterranean Diet Doesn’t Benefit Everyone.” CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Aug. 2017. Web. 19 June 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/31/health/mediterranean-diet-heart-benefits-socioeconomic-study/index.html
(2) Kolata, Gina. “That Huge Mediterranean Diet Study Was Flawed, but Was It Wrong?” The New York Times [New York] 13 June 2018, Health sec.: n. pag. Print.
add’l sources:
(3) https://www.pritikin.com/mediterranean-diet-healthy
(4) https://nutritionfacts.org/2018/02/06/how-healthy-is-the-mediterranean-diet/
