Adherence to Mediterranean diet and health status: meta-analysis

By F. Sofi, F. Cesari, Rosanna Abbate, Gian Franco Gensini, A. Casini. British medical journal, 2008

1,729 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Objective To systematically review all the prospective cohort studies that have analysed the relation between adherence to a Mediterranean diet, mortality, and incidence of chronic diseases in a primary prevention setting. Design Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Data sources English and non-English publications in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from 1966 to 30 June 2008. Studies reviewed Studies that analysed prospectively the association between adherence to a Mediterranean diet, mortality, and incidence of diseases; 12 studies, with a total of 1 574 299 subjects followed for a time ranging from three to 18 years were included. Results The cumulative analysis among eight cohorts (514 816 subjects and 33 576 deaths) evaluating overall mortality in relation to adherence to a Mediterranean diet showed that a two point increase in the adherence score was significantly associated with a reduced risk of mortality (pooled relative risk 0.91, 95% confidence interval 0.89 to 0.94). Likewise, the analyses showed a beneficial role for greater adherence to a Mediterranean diet on cardiovascular mortality (pooled relative risk 0.91, 0.87 to 0.95), incidence of or mortality from cancer (0.94, 0.92 to 0.96), and incidence of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease (0.87, 0.80 to 0.96). Conclusions Greater adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with a significant improvement in health status, as seen by a significant reduction in overall mortality (9%), mortality from cardiovascular diseases (9%), incidence of or mortality from cancer (6%), and incidence of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease (13%). These results seem to be clinically relevant for public health, in particular for encouraging a Mediterranean-like dietary pattern for primary prevention of major chronic diseases.

Subfields: Physiology, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b5ebfdd424c4dff84183131c5abea24b79b0290c

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Citations in the corpus

Diet and inflammation. (2010, background): “In southern Europe, adherence to a traditional Mediterranean diet is associated with a 9% reduction in total and cardiovascular mortality, a 6% reduction in cancer, and a 13% reduction in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease incidence.(44) Following the pioneering work of the Lyon Heart Diet Study in”
Reduction in the Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes With the Mediterranean Diet (2010, background): “Because other studies have shown that the benefit of lifestyle modification in reducing diabetes risk extends beyond the termination of active intervention (23–25), education of the population on the MedDiet might be a safe public health approach to delay or prevent development of diabetes as well a”
Accruing evidence on benefits of adherence to the Mediterranean diet on health: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis. (2010, methodology): “In 2008, we performed a meta-analysis that included all cohort prospective studies that investigated this issue, and we observed that a 2-point increase of adherence to Mediterranean diet conferred a significant protection against mortality, the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases, and major chron”
Definitions and potential health benefits of the Mediterranean diet: views from experts around the world (2014, result): “Consistent with the findings of the landmark Lyon Diet Heart Study [16,39] and the five-year PREDIMED trial [15,31], a number of long-term observational studies supported protective roles of the Mediterranean diet against noncommunicable diseases [5,34,40-43].”
Adherence to a Mediterranean diet, cognitive decline, and risk of dementia. (2009, background): “Adherence to a Mediterraneantype diet has been associated with longer survival, reduced risk of cardiovascular or cancer mortality, and reduced risk of neurodegenerative disease.(2,3) A Mediterranean diet might also have protective effects against cognitive decline in older individuals, because it c”
Mediterranean diet, stroke, cognitive impairment, and depression: A meta‐analysis (2013, result): “Moreover, all studies used food frequency questionnaires, but the latter differed across studies, adding to the complexity of analyses; nevertheless, apart from reviewing single food groups or macro-/micronutrients, it is equally important to systematically review the impact of nutritional patterns,”
The Mediterranean diet improves hepatic steatosis and insulin sensitivity in individuals with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. (2013, background): “The MD has been extensively investigated in terms of benefits in relation to reduction of cardiovascular risk (13) and improvement in insulin sensitivity (14-19), however”
Australian Dietary Guidelines (2006, background): “As with other areas of diet and disease risk, an individual’s dietary pattern may be more relevant than a direct effect from a single component [360, 361].”
Mediterranean diet pyramid today. Science and cultural updates (2011, background): “MD core, based on plant-origin foods, is responsible for the prevention of many chronic diseases and for weight control((4,15)).”