deduced that diet was a major contributor to the Mediterranean
people’ssuperior health—including lower rates of heart disease and
cancer—laying the foundation for further research that has identified
other health benefits and helped to pinpoint the contribution of
specific foods highlighted in the Mediterranean diet.
While these health benefits are widely touted as the reason to follow
a Mediterranean-inspired diet, there is another benefit that is less
well known. It turns that that those who follow the Mediterranean
diet have less of a chance of becoming obese than those who follow
a typical western-style diet. For example, a study published in 2006
in the medical journal Nutritionfound that those who adhered to a
Mediterranean-style diet were 51% less likely to be obese than those
whose diet didn’t resemble this healthy way of eating. Mediter-
ranean-diet adherents have also been found to have lower levels of
systemic inflammation; since inflammation is an outcome of obesity,
and reducing inflammation is a very important facet of a healthy
approach to weight loss, a Mediterranean-style diet can also be
beneficial to healthy weight loss because of its anti-inflammatory
benefits.
Q&A 5:
What Are The Other Qualities That Make a Food
One of The World’s Healthiest Foods?
While nutrient-richness is a defining feature of the World’s Healthiest
Foods, I felt that it was very important that these foods also be easily
accessible. They had to be foods that you could find in natural food
stores and supermarkets. For example, the vegetable purslane, a staple
in dishes served along the Mediterranean, is very nutrient-rich—
including being a source of hard-to-find omega-3s; yet, I felt that it
wouldn’t be of much service to include it in the list of the World’s
Healthiest Foods (even though it may be one of the world’s health-
iest foods) and emphasize it in the Healthy Weight Loss – Without
Dieting, since most people in the U.S. do not readily have access to
Healthy Weight Loss Q & As