Mediterranean Diet Reduces Threat of First Heart Attack

February 9, 2010 by sandy · 4 Comments
Filed under: Diseases, News, health

That first heart attack has got to be a shocker. You’re on the bar watching the game, dipping Buffalo wings into blue cheese and - BAM!

You’re within the floor grabbing your chest and yelling for the drunken buddies to call 911. Only when you’d been popping olives rather than jalapeño poppers.

Just because a new study shows the Mediterranean diet may decrease risk associated with a cardiac event, especially that pesky first heart attack.

Ever wonder why those olive-skinned Mediterranean women - ugh, guys too - look so great? It’s their diet. The Mediterranean diet, full of olive oil, fruits, vegetables, whole grain products, and fish, has long been related to good health.

And now, writing in the Am . j . of epidemiology , scientists say the closer you adhere to the Mediterranean diet, the decrease risk associated with a heart attack; even a 40% reduced risk of a first cardiac event.

By using a special scale to rank units of compliance to the Mediterranean, data revealed with each “1-unit” boost in score, heart disease chance was decreased by 6%. Scientists explain the corresponding diet change isn’t that “drastic.”

So, use this info being a beginning. Cut out red meat 1 day and swap in fish, or cook with olive oil instead of canola oil; ease into it. It always seems weird to me to shock the body through an abrupt diet change.

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