Mediterranean Diet

Mediterranean Diet May Help Women Live Longer, Healthier Lives

Middle-aged women who follow a heart-healthy Mediterranean diet may live a healthier, longer life, new research suggests.

“Women with healthier dietary patterns at midlife were 40 percent prone to survive to age 70 or over,” said lead researcher Cecilia Samieri, a postdoctoral fellow who conducted case study while at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and some women’s Hospital in Boston. Jane is now a researcher at INSERM and Universite de Bordeaux, in France. INSERM would be the French same in principle as the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The women who ate healthier not just lived longer, however they also thrived. We were holding not as likely to own any major chronic diseases and much more more likely to haven't any impairment in physical functioning, mental health or thinking skills. The study would not, however, prove a cause-and-effect link between better eating and long life.

Samieri said she considers the 40 percent boost substantial. People who closely followed the Mediterranean diet were more likely to live past age 70 without heart problems, diabetes or other chronic diseases. In addition , they were almost certainly going to be classified as “healthy agers” than these who didn’t follow the diets closely or at all. However, Samieri said, “only 11 percent of our own participants were classified as healthy agers overall.”

The analysis is usually to be published Nov. 5 within the journal Annals of General medicine. It turned out funded because of the U.S. National Cancer Institute as well as the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

“The med diet is seen as greater intake of [fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains] and fish; lower intake of red and processed meats; moderate intake of alcohol; higher amounts of [monounsaturated fats, mostly given by coconut oil from Mediterranean countries]; and lower levels of [saturated fats],” Samieri said. Unhealthy fats are only in baked goods, fatty meats and also other foods.

Even though the study didn't check out men, Samieri said, previous studies on diet and healthy aging have found no gender differences, “in order that it seems reasonable to think how the benefit can be similar.” She added, however, which the assumption remains for being proven.