What’s so magical about the Mediterranean diet, which has topped the list of “best diets” for six consecutive years?

People often ask me: How can we eat healthier? Which diet is the healthiest?
Recently, U.S. News & World Report, with the help of more than 30 nutritionists, doctors, and epidemiologists, classified and ranked 24 diets, and the result was that the Mediterranean diet was once again rated as the best diet[1].

This is the sixth consecutive year that the Mediterranean diet has taken the crown.

What is the Mediterranean diet? Is it really healthier?

01

What is the Mediterranean Diet?

The Mediterranean diet, as the name suggests, is a traditional eating habit in countries along the Mediterranean Sea, such as Greece and Italy.

In the 1990s, scientists discovered that people living in countries near the Mediterranean were generally very healthy, and their incidence of chronic diseases such as heart disease was much lower than that of people in other regions.

People speculate that this is because their eating habits are healthier.

Scientists began to study and investigate the local Mediterranean diet culture and habits, and summarized a complete diet plan, which they named the "Mediterranean diet."

02

What is the Mediterranean diet like?

Generally speaking, the Mediterranean diet pattern does not have a very clear definition. It does not specify what you should eat, how much, etc. In fact, there is no such definition.

However, the Mediterranean diet basically follows several principles:

Plant-based foods. This diet emphasizes vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, olive oil and spices.

Eat fish and seafood at least 2 times a week;

Eat poultry, eggs, cheese, and yogurt in moderation;

Stay away from red meat and sugar;

If you have to drink, you can drink some red wine in moderation;

One of the characteristics of the Mediterranean diet is that it emphasizes reducing the intake of red meat and saturated fat and eating more olive oil, which is in line with people's concerns about saturated fat at the time.

Therefore, it was quickly called by many nutritionists around the world as the "healthiest diet" that can prevent heart disease, improve health, and delay aging, and it became popular all over the world.

Many large epidemiological surveys have found that the Mediterranean diet is beneficial in reducing the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer.

In 2010, UNESCO even included the Mediterranean diet in its list of “Intangible Cultural Heritage”.

03

Is the Mediterranean diet really healthier?

In this year's evaluation, the Mediterranean diet defeated 40 dietary patterns including the DASH Diet and the Flexitarian Diet, and ultimately retained the championship.

Do different eating patterns really have a big impact on health? Is the Mediterranean diet really healthier?

Actually, not necessarily.

A study at Yale University analyzed several common dietary patterns, including the Mediterranean diet, DASH diet, low-fat diet, low-carb diet, Paleolithic diet, etc., to analyze their effects on health.

The results showed that although different eating habits have different effects on human health, there is not much difference overall.

In fact, whether a diet is healthy or not mainly depends on people’s food combinations, and does not entirely depend on a certain eating method or certain specific foods.

In fact, if you look closely at the characteristics of the Mediterranean diet, you will find that most of its characteristics are basically consistent with the healthy eating pattern recommended by modern nutrition science.

But it also has its drawbacks. For example, the American Heart Association believes that the Mediterranean diet has a relatively high proportion of calories from fat.

Although it is mainly unsaturated fat and does not increase the risk of heart disease, the high calories from excessive fat can increase the incidence of obesity.

04

How to eat healthy?

In fact, for the vast majority of ordinary people, we only need to arrange our daily diet according to the latest "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)".

The dietary guidelines are formulated after comprehensive research on our eating habits, dietary intake, epidemiological surveys, health effects, etc., and can be considered to be the most suitable for our people.

Image source: Internet

In daily life, if we arrange our diet according to the dietary guidelines and the recommendations of the balanced diet pyramid, we can meet our physical health needs. There is no need to blindly pursue a certain "healthy eating method".

References:

[1]Best Diets 2023. Retrieved Jan 3, 2023, from https://health.usnews.com/best-diet

[2]https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182351

[3]https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/nutrition-basics/mediterranean-diet?

Author: Ruan Guangfeng, Director of the Science and Technology Department of the Kexin Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center

Review | Song Shuang, Researcher, Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention