Pasta is part of a healthy Mediterranean Diet says study!!

Hey pasta lovers, a new study finds that noodles may not be so bad for your waistline after all.

The study, from researchers at IRCCS Neuromed Institute in Pozzilli, Italy, explored the potential health benefits of eating pasta. Though the Mediterranean diet has been much touted for its health benefits, with many in the region consuming high levels of fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains, olive oil and similarly healthful foods, pasta — another major food in the Mediterranean — has often been overlooked or associated with weight gain.

When researchers looked at the data of more than 23,000 Italians, they found that moderate pasta consumption was associated with less abdominal obesity, a healthy body mass index and a lower waist circumference. Researchers didn't specify how much pasta constituted a "moderate level," though they did conclude that the Mediterranean diet in moderation, pasta included, is good for health.

North Jersey Health News

Mediterranean Diet with EVOO Reduces Cognitive Decline in Older Age!!

By Jedha Dening




The Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) has long been considered one of the world’s healthiest dietary patterns, so researchers Knight, Bryan, and Murphy set out to review the evidence surrounding the MedDiet, along with the contemporary Western diet, and their associations with age-related cognitive decline. They also sought to determine if it could be a feasible intervention strategy to recommend the MedDiet to those currently consuming a Western dietary pattern.

Obesity is associated with a 70-100% increased risk of dementia. It is fairly well established that the Western diet is a major contributor to the growing rates of obesity. The authors suggest that “it is now becoming evident that the clinical problems related to obesity are translating to effects on brain physiology and function.” There is also a consensus that particular nutrients such as saturated, trans fats and refined sugars contribute to age-related cognitive function and neurodegenerative disease via biological mechanisms including inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance.

As far as an association between the MedDiet and cognitive decline, several longitudinal, three cross-sectional, and two randomized trials assessed in the review did show a general consensus that adhering to a MedDiet improves mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s and dementia. However, due to the nature of the majority of the longitudinal studies being performed in the same cohort of participants, the authors suggest that these results may not be applicable to the wider population.

The two randomized control trials, the only two in this area to date, have shown that consuming a MedDiet with extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) does, in fact, improve cognitive function.

The first trial published in the Journal of Neurology, Neuroscience & Psychiatry, 2013, selected 552 participants with cardiovascular disease to conduct a 5 year trial with a mean follow-up of 6.5 years. Participants were randomized to a low-fat diet or a MedDiet supplemented with EVOO or mixed nuts. The MedDiet group had significantly higher global cognitive scores compared to the low-fat group.

The second trial, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015, selected 447 participants with high cardiovascular risk who were randomly allocated to either a MedDiet supplemented with EVOO; MedDiet supplemented with mixed nuts; or a control low-fat diet. Participants were required to undergo a series of cognitive tests 4.1 years after the intervention. Overall the MedDiet+EVOO scored significantly higher for two of the tests compared to both groups. The MedDiet+EVOO group and MedDiet+mixed nuts saw significant respective changes from baseline in memory, frontal (attention and executive functions), and global function compared to the control group.

Though there are likely many synergistic effects of the MedDiet in its influence on improved cognitive function, researchers claim that the inclusion of olive oil, particularly because of it’s high levels of caffeic acid and tyrosol, reduces markers of inflammation in the central nervous system and has the ability to suppress neuroinflammation in the brain.

Overall the research does suggest that a MedDiet is the best strategy to recommend to people who want to decrease their rate of cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s, dementia, or mild cognitive impairment. Still, while this may be the case, researchers do suggest that due to socio-cultural values, norms, food availability, cost, palatability, and food access, getting people to change their dietary patterns can often be difficult to achieve. They suggest that a more “Westernized” MedDiet intervention could be a more feasible long-term approach worth exploring in future research.


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The Mediterranean Diet is not only Healthy but also better for the Environment.

The Mediterranean diet has been lauded as one of the healthiest diets in the world because of its high consumption of vegetables, legumes, fruits and olive oil, and low intake of animal protein.
A recent study has revealed that the diet predominant in Mediterranean countries creates a much smaller carbon footprint than the standard diets of countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.

The study conducted by a team of five Spanish researchers from the University Hospital Complex of Huelva, Jaume I University of Castellón and the University of Huelva, analyzed the contents of meals served at Juan Ramón Jiménez Hospital in Huelva, southwestern Spain. The menus of 448 lunches and 448 dinners, each totaling 2,000 calories, were analyzed over a period of four seasons.

The study concluded that diet has a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions, with a Mediterranean diet being associated with a lower environmental impact than diets dominated by meat.

In 2006, a United Nations report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concluded that the meat industry is one of the most significant contributors to environmental problems and that meat production is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than transportation.




Olive Oil Times 

Mediterranean diet has long term positive effects

Even if people have regained some weight several years after going on a healthful Mediterranean or low-carbohydrate diet, they can enjoy lasting beneficial effects, according to a follow-up study at Dimona’s Nuclear Research Center and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba.

The study, published last week as a peer-reviewed letter in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, updates the landmark diet study carried out on 322 moderately obese personnel in the workplace over a period of two years, and followed up four years after the end of the intervention. The original study was called DIRECT, for Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial.

Dr. Dan Schwarzfuchs of the Dimona center, where employees were put on diets and the results observed, said: “Our follow- up subsequent data shows lasting, positive effects of Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate diets six years later.”

BGU researchers Dr. Iris Shai and Rachel Golan added: “Data from trials comparing the effectiveness of weight-loss diets are frequently limited to the intervention period. The results after four years suggests that the lipid profile (lower cholesterol, triglycerides and arteriosclerosis) improved over the long term, regardless of partial regain.”

The Mediterranean diet of low meat intake and high consumption of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, pulses and olive oil, as well as the low-carb diet, had a beneficial effect even though the participants regained some weight. But people on a low-fat diet did not have the same consistent and beneficial results.

Four years after the trial was concluded, participants had regained an average of almost 2.7 kg. Since the beginning of the trial, participants who followed the Mediterranean diet lost an average of 3.1 kg., while those on the low-carb diet lost 1.7 kg. Thus the Mediterranean diet was significantly more effective.

After four years post-intervention, more than two-thirds (67 percent) of the DIRECT participants had continued with their original assigned diet, 11% switched to another diet and 22% were not dieting at all.

The researchers also found that after six years, the highdensity lipoprotein (HDL or “good cholesterol”)/low-density lipoprotein (LDL or “bad cholesterol”) ratio remained significantly lower only in the low-carbohydrate diet. Triglyceride (another potential harmful blood fat) levels remained significantly lower in the Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate diets.

The researchers are now performing a new long-term dietary intervention trial that targets weight-loss mechanisms relating to other different dietary strategies, including novel techniques.

jpost

Mediterranean diet helps protect bones‎,says recent study

By DR. SWATI SHROFF, ABC News Medical Unit

Could olive oil be the new milk? A new study suggests that this might be the case — though not all health experts are convinced yet.

The study, which looked at 127 elderly Spanish men, found that those who ate a Mediterranean diet enriched with olive oil had higher levels of a protein called osteocalcin that plays a role in bone formation. The research was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

This could be an important finding since osteoporosis is the most common bone disease in the United States, affecting more than 10 million people. Osteoporosis mainly affects elderly women, but men can develop the disease too. In 2005, there were an estimated 2 million osteoporosis-related fractures, 29 percent them in men.

Earlier studies have found that there are lower rates of osteoporosis in the Mediterranean basin, compared to the rest of Europe, and that may have something to do with the Mediterranean diet. This diet consists of minimally processed fruits, vegetables, breads, beans, nuts and seeds. Olive oil is supposed to be the main source of fat, and there is usually limited dairy, egg, and red meat.

Past studies have suggested that the Mediterranean diet has the potential to lower cardiovascular risk, increase weight loss, lower cancer risk, improve diabetes, and reduce pain and swollen joints in rheumatoid arthritis. What if improved bone health could be added to this growing list?

“We have more evidence that what is good for health in one way, tends to be good for health overall,” says Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University Prevention Research Center. “The very same Mediterranean diet known to be good for cardiovascular health may also confer benefits on your bones.”

However, Dr. Beth Kitchin, a patient educator at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Osteoporosis Clinic, cautions that osteocalcin is simply a marker of bone health — in other words, the new study doesn’t actually look at whether the Mediterranean diet increased bone density or lowered fracture risk.

“This is very interesting data but much, much more work needs to be done before you can say if this has a true clinical impact on bone health,” says Kitchin.

On this point, Katz agrees. “This is not a study of bone density, or clinical effects; it is a short-term study of biomarkers. Interesting, but [it is] more useful for hypothesis generation than anything else.”

Nutritionists were also quick to point out that this study shouldn’t undermine the importance of calcium and vitamin D in bone health.

“It doesn’t replace calcium and vitamin D in the diet, however,” says Keith-Thomas Ayoob, a dietician and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “But including all three, and regular exercise, are showing promise as the best way to ensure good bone health.

“I was brought up on a high-olive oil [Mediterranean] diet. It’s how we ate. But not much milk or calcium-containing foods, and my elders paid a price for it.”

ABC News Medical Unit

Study Finds Olive Oil Better than Medication for Heart Disease

According to preliminary results of a Spanish study part of PREDIMED, a long-term nutritional intervention study aimed to assess the efficacy of the Mediterranean diet in the primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases, virgin olive oil is more effective in reducing heart disease than drugs.

Researchers are reporting that a Mediterranean diet enriched with virgin olive oil or nuts can reverse arteriosclerosis in carotid arteries in just one year.

The study included 187 participants over the age of 55 who were randomly assigned to 3 groups; the olive oil group followed the Mediterranean diet supplemented with 15 liters of virgin olive oil per three months which corresponded to about 10 tablespoons a day, the nut group also followed the Mediterranean diet with 30 grams (about 1 ounce) a day of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts, and the low fat diet group which were given instructions and material to follow a low-fat diet.

All the volunteers had the thickness of the artery walls of their carotid arteries measured, both at the beginning of the study and at the end of a year. “We thus observed who had suffered the greatest thickening of this layer, due to arteriosclerosis, a significant improvement and regression of lesions having taken place in those cases that had followed a Mediterranean diet enriched with virgin olive oil or nuts. This improvement was not observed amongst those who did not have thickening of the artery wall at the start of the study,” according to Dr. Ana Sánchez-Tainta, one of the researchers.

From the results it was concluded that “a modification in the entire diet pattern managed to achieve, in just one year, results that pharmaceutical drugs did not – even after two years of treatment.”