Tag Archives: Mediterranean diet

Aging

Mediterranean Diet Consumption in Older Adults Associated With Lower Risk of Frailty

A group of Spanish researchers have recently published a paper examining the association between consistent Mediterranean diet consumption and risk of frailty in older community-dwelling adults.

A prospective cohort study looking at 1815 Spanish adults over the age of 60 was employed to examine this relationship.

Photo By CDC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo By CDC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
At the beginning of the study, the “degree of Mediterranean Diet adherence” was determined for each study participant, which basically described how strict the participant was in terms of sticking to a Mediterranean-style diet, as well as various frailty measures including: exhaustion, muscle weakness, low physical activity, slow walking speed, and weight loss.

Participants were followed over 3.5 years.

Important findings:

Continue reading Mediterranean Diet Consumption in Older Adults Associated With Lower Risk of Frailty →

News

Wine, Mediterranean Diet, and Your Health News for 12/08/2014

Please click on the links below to read the full articles.

Photo by: (WT-shared) Jpatokal at wts wikivoyage [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo by: (WT-shared) Jpatokal at wts wikivoyage [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Mental Health and Cognition

The Mediterranean Diet May Be Associated with Improved Mood, Cognitive, and Cardiovascular Function in Women

A new study in the journal Nutrition examined the effect of switching to a Mediterranean diet on mental and cardiovascular health outcomes.

The study included 24 female participants who were randomly assigned to either switching to a Mediterranean-style diet or no diet change for 10 days before switching back to their original diet for another 10 days (in the case of the Mediterranean diet group).

Researchers measured mood, cognition, blood pressure, blood flow velocity, and arterial stiffness at the beginning of the study, on day 11 after

Photo By Kk90aa. (Own work.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo By Kk90aa. (Own work.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
completing the first diet segment, and again at day 22 after completing the switch back to their original diets.

Main Findings:

Continue reading The Mediterranean Diet May Be Associated with Improved Mood, Cognitive, and Cardiovascular Function in Women →

News

Wine, Mediterranean Diet, and Your Health News for 12/05/2014

Please click on the links to read the full articles.

Metabolism and Metabolic Disease

Eating a Mediterranean Diet Associated with Lower Risk of Developing Type 2 Diabetes

A recent review performed a meta-analysis on studies within the last year to determine if consuming a Mediterranean-style diet had any influence on type 2 diabetes or not.

The 17 studies included in the review varied in nature in terms of their experimental protocols: 1 was a clinical trial, 9 were prospective studies,

Photo By Tomwsulcer (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo By Tomwsulcer (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
and 7 were cross-sectional studies. Comparing studies with different experimental designs can be somewhat problematic, but there are ways to compare on a more broad scale.

Primary finding:

  • Sticking to a Mediterranean diet led to a 23% decrease in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
    • Even when controlling for region, general health status, and several other potentially confounding factors, this decrease in risk of developing type 2 diabetes was still seen.

While not a be-all end-all “cure” for type 2 diabetes, according to this meta-analysis, eating and maintaining a Mediterranean-style diet could provide some nutritional benefit to those wishing to prevent development of the disease.

 

Source:

Koloverou, E., Esposito, K., Giugliano, D., and Panagiotakos, D. 2014. The effects of Mediterranean diet on the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus: A meta-analysis of 10 prospective studies and 136,846 participants. Metabolism 63: 903-911.