Earlier today I summarized the important new PREDIMED study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing the cardiovascular benefits of the Mediterranean diet. This study– a rare and much welcome instance of a large randomized controlled study of a diet powered to reach conclusions about important cardiovascular endpoints– has been widely praised and will undoubtedly have a major effect in the field of nutrition and will influence lots of people to adopt some form of a Mediterranean diet.
The study’s major potential weakness appears to be that the control group didn’t get a fair chance.
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Dean Ornish, probably the best-known and most passionate advocate of low-fat diets, goes much further in attacking the credibility of the trial…
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The really great thing about the Mediterranean diet, by contrast, is that we know with 100% certainty that it is possible for people to live and eat this way, since they’ve been doing so for millennia. It’s true, though, that the new study didn’t really demonstrate that the Mediterranean diet is better than a true low-fat diet. But it did demonstrate that a Mediterranean diet is healthier than what most people are currently eating. So it’s a good example of a real world trial.
…Now that the Spanish PREDIMED study has been published, I think it must be considered the gold standard. Now it is up to the AHA, and Ornish, to prove that their diets are better than, or even as good as, the Mediterranean diet.







