What’s the Best Diet for Health?
Society is obsessed with food. Stemming from the age-old belief that we are what we eat, we seek to transform our health through our diets. The perpetual search for the ultimate diet has seen many fads come and go, including the Paleo Diet, Grapefruit Diet, Special K Diet, South Beach Diet, Raw Food Diet, Cabbage Soup Diet, and Baby Food Diet.
Why is it so hard to study diet and health?
Nutrition research is incredibly tough because of the massive number of variables to account for (e.g., metabolism, pre-existing health issues, inherited health problems, socioeconomic status, environment). These factors affect what people eat and how their bodies process those foods. Another problem for researchers is that data depends on what people say they eat. Study participants have to fill out food records or logs. The participant has to keep a detailed record of what and how much they eat and drink everyday for months. This, as you can imagine, is a royal pain and many participants forget to accurately log what they consume. On top of that, some misrepresent what they consume (either by omitting certain foods or underreporting how much they eat) because of social pressures to eat “healthy”. For example, overweight people tend to report they eat less than they actually do (Johnson 1994). A more accurate method is to measure certain biomarkers in the blood and urine; however, not every food has a specific marker.
To account for such inaccuracies and generate good data, researchers need thousands of participants and complex statistical analyses. As such, impeccable studies are hard to come by and evaluating health claims in diet fads is difficult.
The Best Diet Ever
Based on years of research, multiple studies, and close to half a million study subjects, the best diet is for your health is… drumroll… the Mediterranean Diet.
What can the Mediterranean diet do for you?
Improve your cognitive functions (including memory, attention, and processing speeds)
Promotes healthy blood sugar control
Improve your blood pressure
Enhance your heart health
Improve your sleep quality
Improve your gut microbiome
Improve your mood and sense of well-being
Promotes healthy weight control
Controls inflammation and free radical damage in your brain and body
Slows the aging process
The Mediterranean diet can help lower your risks of developing many diseases, including:
Dementia and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease
Inflammatory and autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, lupus, inflammatory bowel disease
Cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks and stroke
Diabetes and metabolic syndrome
Depression
Anxiety
Irritable bowel disease
Certain cancers (including breast, colorectal, gastric, prostate, endometrial, cervical, head, neck, lung, biliary, and pancreatic cancers)
In another article, we will explore the scientific reasons the Mediterranean diet is so healthy.
References
Johnson RK, Goran MI, Poehlman ET. Correlates of over- and underreporting of energy intake in healthy older men and women. Am J Clin Nutr 1994;59:1286–1290
