Scientists and dieticians consistently rank The Modern Mediterranean Diet (MED diet) as the diet most recommended. But often people don't know what the MED diet is. This post will define the Med diet.
Critics of the Med Diet
Critics argue that there is no uniform MED diet. They make these assertions based on one of these three arguments:
Heart disease and Diet
Ancel Keys is the scientist most responsible for not only the Med diet but the relationship of heart disease to diet. In the 1950's, heart disease was thought to be a disease of aging, and smoking but not diet or lifestyle.
In the 1950's, much like today, heart disease was the number one cause of death among of middle aged executives. While there was a clear association between smoking and heart disease, there were far more deaths than could be explained from smoking. Then an Italian scientist told Dr. Keys about the low incidence of cardiovascular deaths of men in Naples.
Keys confirmed this claim when he took a sabbatical in Oxford in 1952. Keys found there was a difference of heart disease between the poor and the executives of Italy. He developed the hypothesis that diet might explain difference between the two groups. To confirm this Keys, and his wife, then traveled throughout Europe catalog different diets and rates of heart disease.
In 1955 Keys presented his data to the World Health Organization, concluding that diet played a significant role in heart disease. Many members of the WHO mocked his "diet-heart theory." Keys then organized the seven countries study (click here).
The seven countries study was an observational study looking at biomarkers, lifestyles and their relationship to heart disease. Those countries were Greece, Italy, former Yugoslavia, Finland, The Netherlands, Japan, and the United States. The cohorts were chosen because of diverse diets, lifestyle, and risk factors. Dietary and lifestyle influence on cardiovascular disease was unknown at the time.
The seven country study was to answer the question about dietary influence and heart disease.
Low-carb bloggers accuse the seven country study of leaving out France. They cite the French Paradox, that the French eat a diet high in saturated fat but have a low incidence of heart disease.
However, France was not left out of the study. French investigators were present at the original pilot study in Nicotera Italy, but ultimately decided not to participate in the study. France was recovering from World War 2 and simply didn't have the resources to commit to such a study.
In fact, The French Paradox was "coined" in the 1980s, over twenty years after the start of the seven country study. The investigators didn't have access to that data, or the term. Low-carb bloggers didn't read the seven country study or the French...
