The Mediterranean Diet And Its Benefits

Just imagine the scene; a table on a balcony by the Mediterranean sea, sunshine pouring down as you drink a glass of wine, the table spread with fresh fish, cheeses, salad, everything lightly drizzled in olive oil.

Delicious. Can this really be a diet?

The Mediterranean diet is based on the typical diets eaten by people in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Cyprus and Greece; the countries that border the Mediterranean.

It was first spotted by researchers looking into longevity, who noticed that in many small villages in southern Europe where people has lived in the same way for centuries, life expectancy was some of the best anywhere in the world.

What are these people doing so right? Eating fresh food that they grow or catch themselves, sharing it with family and friends, and savoring it slowly with a small glass of wine.

What kind of food can you eat?

Red meat has never featured heavily in the Mediterranean diet. Fish, seafood and poultry are all encouraged in moderation, and one or two days per week are usually meat-free. Dairy is also fine in moderation. Protein comes from eggs and a variety of different nuts, seeds and beans which are low in fat.

Vegetables make up the bulk of the diet. Very few of us get our recommended five servings a day of vegetables, but in in the Mediterranean diet salads, grilled or marinated vegetables, or vegetables stuffed with lentils and couscous are commonly eaten. Bread and pasta are made from wholegrain flour instead of white, which means they have a higher fiber content, more nutrients and a stronger, more rounded flavor.

A lot of olive oil is used in Mediterranean cooking, which is high in healthy monounsaturated fats but low in saturated fats and trans fats. It is also used to season salads, enhancing the flavor of the vegetables and making them a more satisfying dish.

Dessert on the Mediterranean diet is usually fruit – perhaps baked figs or pears in winter and fresh apricots, mandarins or strawberries in summer with a small amount of cream.

There is hardly any refined sugar in this diet and so very few sweets, except on special occasions. Wine is consumed in moderate amounts with food, but no beer or hard spirits.

This diet has a lot of emphasis on fresh, home-cooked meals, with locally grown seasonal ingredients and no processed food. The diet is also best as part of an active lifestyle, since it was common at a time when people walked everywhere and worked at physical jobs.

Do people lose a lot of weight?

The general conclusion we draw from the different studies is that weight loss is gradual rather than dramatic – but slow and steady wins the race. Research published in medical journal The Lancet in 2016 found that participants who ate a Mediterranean diet over a period of five years lost more weight than a group eating a low-fat diet and had smaller waists, even without calorie restrictions or physical activity.

Another two-year trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008 assigned 322 overweight participants to either a low-fat, low-carbohydrate or Mediterranean diet.

The Mediterranean diet group lost an average of 4.4kg (9.7lbs) over 24 months, with the highest weight loss being over 10kg (22lbs).

The results are no surprise since the diet is one of the easiest to follow. You can eat a wide range of different foods, most of the dishes are simple and made with common ingredients, and anything is allowed in moderation. And it's easy to stick to the diet when eating out since Greek, Italian, Spanish and Turkish restaurants are so easy to find.

The best way to lose weight on the Mediterranean diet is not to count calories too carefully but to always be aware of what goes into your food and what you eat in a typical week. You can eat as many vegetables as you choose without worrying about it, but watch your consumption of pasta, bread and red meat, and eat fruit if you get a craving for something sweet.

Are there any other advantages?

The health benefits of the Mediterranean diet are extraordinary. Research in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2012 found that it could lower LDL cholesterol (that's the bad kind that leads to heart disease) by as much as 10%. People on the diet generally have no problems maintaining high levels of good HDL cholesterol either, and a side benefit of these numbers is that blood pressure is generally lower on the diet.

The high quantities of olive oil are beneficial because the oil contains phenols, antioxidants that fight inflammation and lower the risk of cancer, especially colon and bowel cancers. The balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids reduces chronic inflammation, which is a cause of numerous different long term diseases.

It's not only your body that benefits from the Mediterranean diet, but your brain too. A clinical trial conducted in 2016 measured the brain volume and cortical thickness of patients in their seventies for three years. Participants who stuck to the diet lost less brain volume than those who ate a 'normal' diet even when the normal group ate plenty of fish, which suggests that the combination of ingredients in the Mediterranean diet is more important than the consumption of specific foods.

A loss of brain volume is associated with degenerative diseases like dementia and Alzheimer's, so it seems that this diet protects your brain into old age.

Start today!

The Mediterranean diet has been the standard way of eating in the countries of southern Europe for centuries, and could be the cause of the extraordinary long lifespans found in some villages on the Mediterranean coast. It can protect you from diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer, and it's so easy to follow you're hardly even aware you're on a diet.

Making this lifestyle change could improve your quality of life, and if you can manage to get a little Mediterranean sunshine at the same time then who could complain about that?