More benefits to a high-fat Mediterranean diet, new study says

Second, it had to have two or more of seven different components: having a high ratio of monounsaturated-to-saturated fat, which can be achieved by using olive oil or canola oil; high fruit and vegetable intake; high consumption of legumes; high grain and cereal intake; moderate red wine consumption; moderate consumption of dairy products; and low consumption of meat and meat products with increased intake of fish. It may be time to stop – that is, if your daily diet is Mediterranean.

The results of the study were published online in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers don’t know exactly why these healthy fats are a magic bullet just yet. But more and more research has shown that cutting off all fat may actually do more harm than good, and you’re better off simply steering away from processed foods and sugar if you want to reach a healthy weight.

Extra “good fats” from a Mediterranean diet may help protect against heart disease, diabetes and breast cancer, a research review suggests.

“I was not surprised because the literature on which this study was based has been out there for a while”, Bloomfield said.

After analyzing the data, the results showed that a Mediterranean diet with no restriction on fat intake may be associated with reduced incidence of cardiovascular events, breast cancer, and type 2 diabetes mellitus compared with any other diet.

The researchers found an association but couldn’t prove cause and effect.

The Mediterranean diet is an eating pattern that originated in countries around the Mediterranean Sea, such as Italy and Greece.

These findings have been published before, and this study combined with other observational research does “convincingly prove the benefits of this diet for cardiovascular disease and diabetes”, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a nutrition researcher at Tufts University in Boston who wasn’t involved in the current analysis, said by email.

The take-home message is that the type of fat, total calories and quality of food we consume can all impact our overall health, disease risk and weight, said Samantha Heller, a registered dietician and exercise physiologist affiliated with New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City.

She said the study supports the idea that eating healthy fats may fill you up more than carbohydrates, and the misplaced emphasis over the past 30 years on eating a low-fat diet may have backfired by leading people to eat unchecked amounts of sugar and refined carbohydrates leading to obesity.

A high-fat diet may not be so bad for you after all, according to science.