The Mediterranean Dietary Pattern

Abstract

The Mediterranean diet is among the most well researched dietary patterns for the prevention of cardiovascular (CV) disease with study types ranging from large scale observational studies to randomized controlled clinical trials. The diet is predominantly comprised of plant-based foods and whole grains, with lesser amounts of dairy products, fish, poultry, eggs, olive oil, and wine. The diet has been associated with an overall lifestyle pattern that also includes physical activity and communal gatherings making it difficult to separate out the health benefit of any individual dietary or lifestyle component. Overall, the diet has been associated with improvement in CV risk factors (lipids, blood pressure, glucometabolic state, weight), metabolic syndrome, systemic inflammation, oxidative stress, endothelial function, and CV events. With a large body of evidence for the Mediterranean diet and significant overlap with other diets shown to have benefit for CV disease reduction, dietary counseling encouraging the main components of the diet should be at the core of CV care.