Long live the Mediterranean diet
Today in our blog we want to highlight the results of two recent pieces of research that have come out of the PREDIMED Study, which we have already spoken about at times.
The reason for choosing these two pieces of research is that both have come to similar conclusions which are very encouraging in terms of human health: a diet rich in polyphenols, such as the Mediterranean diet (based on extra virgin olive oil) contributes to reducing mortality.
The first of these pieces of research is the one that has been coordinated by Doctor Rosa Mª Lamuela, director of the Natural Antioxidants Research Group at the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Barcelona. This has also involved researchers from Rovira i Virgili University (URV).
In this research, which forms part of the doctoral thesis of Ana Trasserra, there has been further analysis of the data provided by the PREDIMED study, which studied people aged between 55 and 80 with cardiovascular risks.
The resulting figures could not have been more positive: this researcher found that the mortality rate (due to cardiovascular diseases or otherwise) of those people who had followed a diet rich in polyphenols was much lower than among the people who had not followed a similar diet.
After her analysis, she also highlighted that certain types of polyphenols were responsible for this reduction in mortality: first we have the stilbenes, present in grape skin and concentrated in red wine; and second we have the lignans found in foods such as olives, sesame and flax seeds and whole grains.
Doctor Lamuela explained that “in other populations studied previously, the consumption of any of the foods rich in polyphenols was not sufficient in itself to reduce mortality, but in our study the consumption of polyphenols was examined more widely, coming from different food sources”. In other words, consuming a variety of types of polyphenols is the key to increasing our life expectancy.
The second study that we want to tell you about focuses specifically on the relationship between the different types of olive oil and the risk of cardiovascular disease, and has been undertaken by the same research groups, although coordinated in this case by Jordi Salas Salvadó, professor at the URV.
This study reveals that if the daily consumption of extra virgin olive oil is increased by 10 grams, mortality due to cardiovascular problems is reduced by 10%. Among the oils, extra virgin olive oil is the best quality due to having a high content of polyphenols, a feature of the oil from the PDO Montoro-Adamuz.
Without a doubt these are two good news stories that once again make us proud of our oil, one of those with the highest content of polyphenols, and make us want to say “Long live the Mediterranean diet!”, as it lengthens our lives.