A Mediterranean Diet May Offer Additional Health Benefits

By Drucilla DyessPublished: Wednesday, 10 February 2010

By following a Mediterranean diet, you may gain more than just dietary benefits. Mediterranean-type diets are plentiful in fish, fruit, whole grains, nuts, and olive oil. They are known to be heart healthy, and have also been shown to lessen the risk of cancer and depression. Now, more health benefits have been added to the growing list associated with the diets that limit dairy, meat, poultry, and saturated fatty acids. A new study suggests that they may also ward off cognitive problems associated with aging.

According to Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas, an associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center, New York City, and the lead author of the study, the analysis relates diet to strokes. The results of the research will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in April.

The study involved a total of 712 men and women who had no history of stroke, and were an average age of 80 years. Participants were asked questions about their diet, and several years later, each underwent an MRI. Because dietary patterns remain consistent for a minimum of seven years, following up with an MRI approximately six years later allowed the researchers to look for brain infarcts that could be related to diet. Brain infarcts are tissues that have died due to a lack of blood supply. Scarmeas noted that the infarcts are true strokes that escape notice because they are so small. However, and MRI brain scan can detect the small strokes.

The MRI results revealed that 238 of the study participants had at least one area of brain damage. The researchers then examined participant adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet during the six years prior to undergoing the MRI. Regarding the results, Scarmeas said, “What we found was, those people who were following a healthier diet, more Mediterranean-like, had fewer brain infarcts, strokes, on the MRI.” In fact, findings showed that people who most closely followed a Mediterranean-like diet were 36 percent less likely to have areas of brain damage, in comparison to those did not.

Scarmeas pointed out the association between diet eaten and having a reduced risk of damage to the brain by explaining, “We broke the diet adherence into three groups: those who adhered very, very little [to a Mediterranean-type diet], those who adhered to a moderate degree, and those adhering to a high degree.” People who followed the diet to a moderate degree were 21 percent less likely to have brain damage than those in the group with the least adherence, while individuals closely following the diet had a 36 percent less risk in comparison to those who followed it the least.
Scarmeas said that the findings suggest the effects of diet on brain health is similar that of blood pressure. While participants who followed the Mediterranean diet were shown to have a level of protection against damage to the brain comparable to people who do not have hypertension, an increased risk for having strokes based on their dietary habits was similar to people who have hypertension. Scarmeas and his colleagues have shown in previous studies that a Mediterranean diet can decrease the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and possible expand the life expectancy of those having the disease. The new findings have now shown further benefit by decreasing the likelihood of cognitive decline. However, the promising results will require further research to determine if the reduced number of strokes is actually due to following the Mediterranean diet itself. Regarding the study outcome, Scarmeas noted “It's not a clinical trial, where we assign people to a certain diet.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, between one and four percent of Americans suffer from vascular dementia, and the National Institute on Aging projects that between 2.4 million and 4.5 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer's disease. In addition to the promising results of recent studies on Mediterranean-type diets, other studies have suggested that following this type of diet could end the need of drug therapy for type 2 diabetes patients. New and forthcoming information continues to make clear the direct effects of diet on health. Eating healthy is the key to staying healthy. Visit the Health News diet pages to arm yourself with the knowledge you need to start eating and living healthy. Begin you journey here.

Diet pill dangers

Lucy's Blog

Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 5:17 PM

| posted by selfeditor

I've never been a fan of supplements, at least not the kind designed to help you lose weight. And this week, when more than a dozen Hydroxycut products were taken off the market because they are linked to liver damage, seizures and in one case, death, I felt completely vindicated in my absolute anti-diet pill stance.

I know how hard it is to lose weight. I have lost about 25 pounds and managed to keep it off—but without my passion for a cardio-intensive sport (triathlon) and the change in the way I eat (more fish, veggies and fruits, plus healthy fats from nuts, avocado and olives), I never would have been able to do it. I failed at every diet: Atkins lasted about two hours and gave me an intense headache. I read South Beach but I knew I couldn't stay away from fruit for the two-week phase-in plan, so I didn't try it. I even attended a Weight Watchers meeting once. When a young woman, a chef in a nice restaurant, got up and confessed that she couldn't help but pick off the trays of desserts (I love a good brownie edge myself), my heart went out to her. But I decided that to have to confess our "sins" in group therapy wasn't my bag. I quit.

So diets never worked and I could be called the perfect target for the marketing of a supplement for weight loss. Except for one key thing: I don't like to relinquish control. Not to those I love and certainly not to a stranger packaging something so potentially damaging that it could cost me my good health. Because no matter how much I hated my saddle bags, I liked myself too much to jeopardize the organs and heart and functionality that had always served me well. I loved my body, I just hated the fat that lay like a big blanket on top of it.

My solution was to cut out a lot of sugar, stayed away from bread and stick to one glass of wine three nights a week (OK, sometimes on Saturday night I had two!). That was less than I'd have before, and the thing about alcohol is that it washes away my resolve. So in the pre-slim me phase, a second glass meant I'd reach for the ice cream or cookies without even a blink. Now I still have those treats, but not every night and not in the same way. In other words, I eat healthy. My number-one rule is if I lived on a farm and could grow this on a tree, a bush or in the ground, I can have as much of it as I like. That's basically my "diet," and it works like a charm.

I have always been active, on high school and college crew teams, running and even doing the NYC marathon more than once. But that, I thought, meant I could eat all I want, and the truth is you can't. Your muscles are one part of the machinery that makes up your body, but they don't burn hot enough or long enough to make up for all the sugar and high-fructose corn syrup that most of us get in our diets, unless we are careful and choose to eat healthy. So yes, exercise daily, but don't fool yourself that by doing so, you've earned a free pass to chow down.

Back to Hydroxycut: Like fen-phen before it, it has been shown to cause damage to your insides. My pal who once took fen-phen ended up with a heart murmur. She never will know for certain that was the cause, but I have my suspicions. My attitude is that you wouldn't relinquish control of your body to a stranger, so why would you give it to a strange pill? We all know the FDA is supposed to protect us, but things are allowed to go on the shelves unless they are proven unhealthy, and even then the "proof" is sometimes hard to come by. Until there is a real magic pill, I still rely on healthy eating, no strict dieting, and a good dose of exercise (yes, for me that's about an hour a day, five days a week, and more on weekends). But I love healthy food. And I love to move. So these aren't punishments. Just a way of saying thank you to my body for being healthy. I consider it a lucky and privileged job to keep it that way.

Published at http://www.self.com/magazine/blogs/lucysblog/2009/05/diet-pill-dangers.html

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