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The Healthiest Cuisine in the World

It's the long-life secret Mediterraneans have known for years. Now, scientists say the diet may be good for your body and your brain. Here's why.

By Maureen Callahan, M.S., R.D.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

A drizzle of olive oil and plenty of legumes, grains, and fish—all staples in the diet of sun-drenched Mediterranean countries—is definitely good for the heart. Now it appears that it's good for the brain as well. According to a year-long study from Columbia University of nearly 2,000 people, those who stuck closely to the Mediterranean style of eating cut their risk of Alzheimer's disease by a whopping 68 percent.

Of course, the research in this area is still preliminary, and results are conflicting, admits Dr. Richard Powers, chairman of the medical advisory board at the Alzheimer's Foundation and a professor of neurology at the University of Alabama. "I suspect the benefits of the diet have to do with a positive effect on blood vessels in the brain," he says. "But right now this is just speculation." Still, Powers is a big fan of the Mediterranean diet, and it's the first one he recommends to patients. "If it can baby your blood vessels and your heart, it will probably baby your brain too," he says.

Tentative as the brain-diet link may be, there's no question a Mediterranean style of eating is good for you in other ways. "You may recall that interest in the Mediterranean diet first centered around prevention of heart disease," says esteemed nutrition researcher Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard School of Public Health. Studies also show the Mediterranean diet "is more effective for long-term weight loss than a low-fat diet," he adds.

And the benefits don't stop there. A recent report confirms that following the Mediterranean diet dramatically cuts your risk of death from several serious diseases. In one of the largest studies ever done on the topic—a joint effort between the University of Athens Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health—scientists followed the diets of more than 22,000 Greek adults ages 20 to 80 for four years. The end result: The closer these adults stuck to a Mediterranean-style diet, the lower their risk of death from both heart attack and cancer. "The benefits were striking," says Dimitrios Trichopoulos, senior author of the study and a longtime epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. "There was a 30 percent reduction in mortality among both men and women who closely followed the Mediterranean diet."

All this evidence is enough to make anyone reach for the figs or the feta. But here's the mystery: When experts looked at individual foods—olive oil, fish, or grains—to see what might be responsible for the benefits, no single food stood out. "Whether it's the olive oil or the plant foods or a combination of things, we're just not sure," admits Trichopoulos. "But the benefit is clearly there." One thing he'd like to point out to Americans: The vegetable intake in Greece is high. In fact, most Greeks eat about a pound of vegetables per day, drizzled with olive oil, of course.

In reality "Mediterranean" diets aren't exactly alike, since at least 16 countries border the Mediterranean Sea, and each one favors its own diet staples. The link between all of them, according to the American Heart Association, is that the overall style of eating is low in saturated fat.

They also share these five strategies:
1. A strong focus on vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, and grains
2. Liberal use of olive oil, an important source of mono-unsaturated fat
3. Moderate amounts of fish and chicken, and only small amounts of red meat
4. Low to moderate amounts of eggs and dairy
5. Small to moderate amounts of red wine

Willett, long a vocal advocate of the Mediterranean approach, suggests another key reason behind the benefits. "An important part of the Mediterranean way of eating is to focus on the quality of the food and enjoy it slowly," he says. Most Americans, he adds, are into "gulping down large amounts of low quality foods with little thought to the pleasure of meals."

So dish up a bowl of our Roasted Cumin-Carrot Soup with the Rotisserie Chicken and Greek Salad for a light lunch. Make an easy supper of the Lemon Clam Linguine, and end your meal with a slice of Sweet Rosemary Cake. You can mix and match all of these options to create new, Mediterranean-inspired meals. All the recipes are easy to prepare, so you can get out of the kitchen fast and sit back and relax during mealtime. After all, the secret of the world's healthiest cuisine is not just about finding the right foods, it's also about taking the time to savor them.

A two-time winner of the James Beard award, food journalist Maureen Callahan writes frequently about health and nutrition for many popular magazines. A registered dietitian, she did her culinary training at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.

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