"We should all eat like a Mediterranean
9/22/2004"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-09-21-mediterranean-usat_x.htm
"In a separate study in the same journal, researchers from the Second
University of Naples in Italy found that Mediterranean-style diets
helped patients with "metabolic syndrome," which increases the risk of
heart disease and diabetes and affects 1 in 4 American adults.
People with the syndrome are fat around the middle, have high blood
pressure and cholesterol deposits in their arteries, and do not
properly process glucose. After two years, 44% of those on the
Mediterranean diet still had features of metabolic syndrome, compared
with 86% of others.
This research confirms the results of earlier studies, experts say. A
previous study of heart-attack survivors showed that the mortality rate
was 70% lower among those who followed a prescribed Mediterranean diet
compared with people on a low-fat diet.
"The Mediterranean experience makes it clear that healthy eating is
completely consistent with wonderful eating," says Walter Willett,
chairman of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Yet getting more Americans to adopt healthy living will be a challenge,
says Dario Giugliano, an author of the metabolic syndrome study.
Experts say only 1 in 5 Americans eat the recommended five to nine
servings of fruits and vegetables a day."
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