Mediterranean Diet Could Help You Live Longer: Study

We may be one step closer in that eternal quest to find the fountain of youth. A new study suggests eating a Mediterranean diet might increase lifespan.

The findings, published in the journal AGE, show that elderly people who eat a Mediterranean diet -- which is high in fish and vegetables and low in animal products like milk and red meat -- have about a 20 percent increased chance of living longer compared with their non-Mediterranean-eating counterparts.

"This means in practice that older people who eat a Mediterranean diet live an estimated 2-3 years longer than those who don't," Gianluca Tognon, scientist at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, said in a statement.

The study was based on data from the H70 study in Sweden; the H70 study has gone on for more than 40 years in the Swedish region, and included thousands of 70-year-olds, researchers said.

This is certainly not the first study to show a link between eating a Mediterranean diet and living a longer life. A 10-year study published earlier this year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that men ages 55 to 69 who abide by a Mediterranean diet have an extended life expectancy of eight years, the Times of India reported. For women, the extended life expectancy is even higher, at up to 15 years.

Recently, the Mediterranean diet ranked third in the U.S. News and World Report's list of best diets for healthy eating. For the full ranking, click through the slideshow:

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Comments

[mikecrt]

05:47 AM on 12/26/2011

I laugh at all the Atkins diet haters. Truly hysterical. My ex went on the Weight Watcher fiasco of a diet. Meanwhile, me and 2 of my sons, both in their twenties went on the Atkins plan. While she was losing a safe slow 1 lb or less a week, we were dropping large amounts of weight, and eating all we wanted of the approved foods. She of course dumped the weight watcher diet and gave up. In six months, one son went from 270 lbs to 185, the other from 320 to 212, and I have gone from 490 to 410. Took blood tests. My Dr. said he would be very interested to see the results. My cholesterol went down, bad cholesterol went down and good went up. All measurements well within norm. He was amazed and became another convert. We all have eliminated fast foods, processed junk and eat as healthy as possible. Have more energy and we all exercise now, because we feel like it and we actually can now. Keep up all the other ridiculous approaches, this works and can be followed easily.

[Karl Wilder]

02:36 PM on 12/25/2011

The Atkins and Raw Food folks are the most annoying. Does the looney diet affect their personality?

[honeybear64]

07:01 PM on 12/25/2011

Is it the ACTUAL Atkins diet that you find annoying? Or is it just the cartoonish "Atkins-no-vegetables-all-the-steak-and-bacon-you-can-eat-diet" cariacture so prevalent in the popular imagination that you find annoying?

[mikecrt]

05:48 AM on 12/26/2011

Possibly it's all the weight you lose on the Atkins diet with no effort, and the fact that study after study shows its benefits.

[Karl Wilder]

11:24 AM on 12/26/2011

The ACTUAL diet. I've studied the whole thing.

[honeybear64]

02:24 PM on 12/25/2011

Slide #20 is a classic misrepresentation of the Atkins diet. As always, the only aspect of the diet that the article considers is the initial two-week "Induction Phase". During the long-term "maintenance" phase, carbohydrates are added back in to the extent that one can do so without gaining weight, and different people have different levels of tolerance for carbs. And "severe restrictions on vegetables"? Since when does the Atkins diet place restrictions on (non-starchy) vegetables?

The nutritional theories that inform this article are so outdated it's almost embarassing. Who funded the research - the National Carbohydrate Council?

[Klad InVermont]

12:06 PM on 12/25/2011

Funny how resistive Americans can be to anything that doesn't tote the way they themselves do things, especially if they view it as an inconvenience.

[caugrl]

12:52 PM on 12/24/2011

If this diet is so healthy, why do the Japanese live longer than the Europeans? I generally believe a study done on Jewish people who lived to be over one hundred that came out a few months ago. These hundred year olds drank it up, smoked it up, and were no more likely to excersize than the control group who died in the 70's. So, it simply comes down to genes. You either got it or you don't. I tend to like the Titanic explanation of life. If those people knew that the ship was to go down that night- every single one of them would have had the dessert!

[Klad InVermont]

12:12 PM on 12/25/2011

Actually there's a 7th Day Adventist community near Los Angeles, who live longer than most anyplace else and they are all vegetarians.

[TaurusRose]

04:56 AM on 12/24/2011

A poorly written, poorly researched and, in turn, this article poorly informed its readers.

[FaunaAndFlora]

01:29 AM on 12/24/2011

Two things come to mind. First, this is an epidemiological study and therefore proves nothing. Since this so-called Mediterranean Diet has been promoted as a healthy diet, it is more likely that those who follow this diet are more health-conscious than the general population. This alone is enough to skew the results. For example, there was a time when estrogen replacement was believed to prevent heart disease in post-menopausal women based on several epidemiological studies. After clinical studies found the exact opposite, it was assumed that the epidemiological studies were skewed by health-conscious post-menopausal women who took estrogen because they were told it was good for them.

Second, this has more to do with the anti-meat and anti-dairy faction among certain researchers in the United States and less to do with the various diets that are consumed by people who live along the Mediterranean Sea. For what it's worth, most epidemiological studies suggest that those Mediterranean people who eat the most meat (namely, the Greeks and the Cretes) are healthier than those who eat less meat and more pasta.

[SACULA]

10:00 PM on 12/23/2011

THEY ARE THE BIGGEST DRINKERS AND SMOKERS IN EUROPE

[gordonclay]

05:54 PM on 12/23/2011

Your panel has the diets in reverse order. Conventional wisdom agrees with you. However, it is not based on research and facts and how the body permanently gets ride of pounds. More carbs, like you are suggesting, leads to numerous diseases that aren't generally present in people who eat no or few carbs but instead are generally meat and fat consuming people. We don't gain weight and I haven't regained one single pound in the last six months after ataining a 48 pound weight loss. To me a better diet is one that sets the body up to keep the attained weight rather returning to the earlier weight, or more, when stopping the diet. It seems like the plans you have ranked at the top are the ones that people have to practice the rest of their lives and still have problems keeping the weight off. They are based on burning carbs instead of burning fat and I have found no research that supports high cards versus high fat foods. Conventional wisdom is like being normal. No one ever said normal is healthy, it's just what people think other people think is right. And in this case, conventional wisdom isn't based on research. So conventional wisdom produces articles like yours that, basically, has the information backwards.

[Karl Wilder]

02:37 PM on 12/25/2011

Basically you are wrong, but believe what you like.

[gordonclay]

12:57 AM on 12/26/2011

Ditto

[mikecrt]

05:54 AM on 12/26/2011

Couldn't be more right. Fat is consumed, used and then dumped by the body. Carbs are consumed, used, and then the excess is stored as fat. Protein is also consumed, used and excess dumped. Reduce carbs and you reduce the stored fat. This is such a simple concept that it seems to completely baffles the brainless.

[ceokeith]

05:04 PM on 12/23/2011

A coke a day, mcdonal's 1/4 pounder, 1 bowl of puerto rican chille, a dash of salt, 2 sips of kosher wine and a cut of fried chicken will do it.

[navidinc]

03:27 PM on 12/23/2011

Everything looks absolutely delicious...For more of this, feast your eyes on http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCCE97DF999A19B85 - Mediterranean dishes from local restaurants in SoCal. Bon Appetit.

[DavidMG]

04:09 PM on 12/22/2011

Dept of no false modesty: Our cookbook, "American Wholefoods Cuisine" has been in print for 27 years because it makes this diet assessible to Americans.

[badgerknox]

10:01 AM on 12/22/2011

salmon is not part of a mediterranean diet: they don't live in the Med.

[blurredmolly]

09:54 AM on 12/22/2011

couldn't do fish. I don't trust it.

[wrobbins]

05:33 AM on 12/24/2011

Did fish do something to lose your trust?

[msd7733]

06:48 AM on 12/24/2011

They eat worms when no one is looking.

[blurredmolly]

08:18 AM on 12/24/2011

the mercury. can't trust it.

[Steveh0607]

08:54 AM on 12/22/2011

Which Mediterranean diet are we talking about? The North African one? The Iberian one? Greek? Italian? French? Israeli?

Is it the meat centered one? The Pasta/rice centered one? Fish? Beans? Vegetables?

There are so many to choose from. Which one is correct??

[Klad InVermont]

12:08 PM on 12/25/2011

Like anything that's valid, it's a little of this and a little of that, not just one cuisine over another.

[Steveh0607]

12:37 PM on 12/26/2011

I was pointing out that the catch-all phrase "Mediterranean Diet" is inaccurate because there is more than one Mediterranean cuisine and they are very different from one another.