Mediterranean Diet – Prescription for disease prevention – Part 2

In Part 1, we looked at the Mediterranean diet as a possible prescription for good health and longevity. The Greeks living on Crete and consuming their traditional diet can boast the lowest rates of heart disease in the world. Not only are the Greeks relatively free of cardiovascular disease but they are also far freer of the other diseases of civilization – cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, menopausal abnormalities, gall bladder disease and diverticulitis to name the most common.

What is so curious about this is that the Greeks would appear to break all of the “rules” which we in Australia hold up as icons for cardiovascular disease prevention. This anomaly may explain why you may occasionally hear of a person who has been to his doctor and been given a “clean bill of health”. Secure in this apparent reassurance, there is great surprise and shock when the individual suffers a heart attack soon after. Many modern nutritionists are asking whether we are measuring disease risk in the right way.