Is OLIVE OIL the key to freedom from heart disease? Recent research in Greece suggests that using a lot of the stuff may be good for you. The inhabitants of the island of Crete use virtually no butter or margerine-their oil of choice is olive oil-and they have virtually no heart disease. My question about studies of these types: do people eating the “Mediterranean Diet” i.e lots of olive oil, really have better cardiac health? Or do they die before the symptoms of heart disease become apparent? The same with the French claim that red wine prevents heart disease-has this really been proven?
Given that the Mediterranean Diet also consists of fresh fruit & veg, lots of fish, and very little red meat, not to mention an active lifestyle, one would suspect olive oil is only part of the solution.
I think, but I’m not 100% sure, that the red wine claim was either debunked or at least had questions raised about it. This may have been some time ago, a year at least.
More recent claims are that the odd beer may do your ticker some good.
Aren’t Italians and the French similarly “blessed”? What of their diet? I’m under the impression that both cultures have staple dishes which are not as healthy as the Mediteranean diet listed above.
Yer pal,
Satan
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Three months, three weeks, one day, 11 hours, 44 minutes and 20 seconds.
4539 cigarettes not smoked, saving $567.44.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 1 day, 18 hours, 15 minutes.
Well, given how long Popeye’s been hanging out with her, she must be good for something…
In all seriousness- the above posters sound right; were olive oil the panacea that some would present it as, Italians would have a better life expectancy. In addition, most of the ‘better health’ of the Cretians can be attributed to plenty of fish and fruit.
We are taught that fats (and oils) are bad for us, but if you check out low carb sites you will read that fats are very important to keep you healthy.
That’s nothing! In Ethiopia, heart disease is virtually unknown!
Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that the average Ethiopian lifespan is only 30-some years…
Okay, I’m just a medical student, so take it with a grain of salt (or olive oil if you’d prefer).
There is no cure all for heart disease (sorry guys!)
Fat is generally bad, but calories are bad as well. The reason a high protein diet works is it tricks your body into thinking it is starving (maintaining low insulin and low blood sugar). The only problem with this is the diet is not maintainable. Healthy living requires a lifelong commitment, although a low carb diet with high protein and high fat helps to keep you full longer.
People eat fat, though. So, the trick is to eat “good” fat. The more “liquid” the fat (or the more unsaturated), the better it is for you, because the more energy your body has to expend to process it (basically). You therefore burn more of this fat before it is transported to your love handles. It is really in the transport process where the troubles come in. Fat is often transported as cholesterol, which tends to get caked on arterial walls and cause strokes and heart attacks.
Olive oil is highly unsaturated – polyunsaturated. So, a lesser form of evil.
Incidentally, there are “good” fats – so called omega-3 fatty acids from deep-sea fish like salmon reduce cholesterol biosynthesis.
Next, red wine. There are a few effects postulated. The first is that one glass of alcohol a day tends to increase HDL or “good cholesterol.” This acts like a sponge to soak up cholesterol plaques deposited on your arteries. Next, red wine decreases your blood pressure (by alcohol, which is a depressant and tends to relax you a bit). Third, there is a postulated effect by several chemicals in the actual wine which may act as antioxidants to decrease certain types of cellular damage. Lastly, there is a purported effect of the tannins to do the same as an antioxidant. Granted, these have been correlated to esophageal cancer. Just like the ethanol is tied to all types of things.
Studies are still being carried out. It is really difficult to do cross-cultural comparisons, because as touched upon, a “Meddterranean lifestyle” encompasses so much more than diet. It is also really difficult to see the effect of eating fish or some dietary aspect because it needs to be a big change (let’s say eating fish 5 times a week compared to none) over a very long time (5 years at least) to see any type of changes.
[The only problem with this is the diet is not maintainable]
what do you meen by not maintainable, I’ve been on it for almost 6 yrs and don’t plan to stop. There are many support groups available on the net (and off, i’m sure) consisting of some people who have been on such lowcarb diets for longer then I. One of the reasons the this type of diet was created was to cure (or at least reduce) heart disease, Dr Atkins is a cardiologist, while Dr. Sears used a lower carb diet to cure his heart disease (though the zone is not really low carb but much lower then FDA recomends). the following is from the atkins center web site:
[What about all the studies stating that fat intake is detrimental to your health? Actually, there are as many, if not more, studies, which show the opposite is true. We have provided excerpts of a number of these studies on our \Diet" page of this website. Your body needs fat to survive and thrive; as many fats provide a host of health benefits (not including hydrogenated fats; a dangerous processed fat invented by the processed food companies). Most importantly, fats make you feel full sooner and keep you less hungry longer. If you eat a diet that includes natural fat and listen to your body when it tells you it’s satisfied, you are well on the road to a healthy diet that you can live with forever. " ]