Mediterranean Diet: Impact on Cardiovascular Risk, Heart failure and Healthy Aging

Paola Antonini, M.D., PhD and Michael Murphy*, M.D., PhD

*Worldwide Clinical Trials, Inc.

Introduction

The Mediterranean Diet. Myth and History of a Lifestyle

“Culture and history plunge directly into things, into stones, into wrinkles on human faces, in the taste of wine and oil, into the color of waves”. Mediterraneum – Claudio Magris.

It is becoming increasingly clear that dietary patterns impact health, with relevant effects of nutritional components on body functions and disease processes 1.

The Mediterranean Diet, representing the dietary pattern usually consumed among the populations bordering the Mediterranean Sea, has been widely reported to be a model of healthy eating for its contribution to a favorable health status and a better quality of life.

“The phrase “Mediterranean diet” was coined at the end of the 1950s by Ancel Keys, an American physiologist and nutritionist who had landed in Salerno in 1944 with the U.S. armed forces. Among other things, he discovered the link between high cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease. After the war Keys purchased a house in the Cilento region in Southern Italy and spent the next 40 years conducting studies on nutrition. These studies gave scientific dignity to the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet and helped promote it throughout the world 2”.

The scientific and the lay literature is very rich on the ‘Mediterranean diet’, which is identified with more than 3000 scientific articles 3.

Recognition was enshrined when in 2013 the Mediterranean diet was inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity4. From the UNESCO website, explanations, pictures and videos contribute to better define, introduce and characterize the Mediterranean Diet:

“The Mediterranean Diet involves a set of skills, knowledge, rituals, symbols and traditions concerning crops, harvesting, fishing, animal husbandry, conservation, processing, cooking, and particularly the sharing and consumption of food.