Med diet pyramid increases your health

Here a list of the recent buzz I’ve found on the web this week…so let’s talk about:

General

• Is the Mediterranean diet really what we need?
• What is a Mediterranean pyramid diet?

Health effects

• Interview with world heart scan authority, Dr. John Rumberger
• How to fight Prostate Cancer and blindness
• Causes mortality after myocardial infarction

Foods

• More Omega-3s essential
• Diabetic Diets and Wine
• Lower Cholesterol by eating tomatoes
• Why You Should Make Extra Virgin Olive Oil Part of Your Diet
• Spinach and Eggs Can Help Your Vision

Cooking

• Some cooking advices on how to cook some Med foods

Not so good info…

• Greek diet fuels heart problems
• Binge Drinking On The Rise In Mediterranean Countries

An healthy weight loss diet

• Does the Mediterranean diet is really what we need? – This is a great Italian article about how useful is the Mediterranean diet in respect to our way of life.

The Med diet come from the farm culture where farmers used to eat what exactly they produced. The author says that this type of diet is related (and has its positive effects) to the physical activities done by the farmers that justify the great consumption of carbs as energy source.

Today, cause our sedentary life, a big consumption of carbs is not well indicated. So the problem is not exactly the “Diet” per se but the fact we are sedentary.

So we should add less calorie and eat the healthy foods coming from the Mediterranean.

• What is a Mediterranean pyramid diet? – Here a great question from Yahoo! about the pyramid. The best answer is a link to this page where is explained the Mediterranean diet pyramid

Summarizing the pyramid is based on:

• Divide foods in 20% proteins, 30% Fats and 50% Carbohydrates
• 5 eating times a day
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • 2 snacks times in the half morning and evening
• Consume 3-4 portions of this various aliments
  • Cereals: bread and pasta, rice, maize, oats, luff, grain, potatoes ( Use cereals for breakfast, lunch and limit the use for dinner)
  • Beans, peas, lupins.
  • Fruits: apples, pears, oranges, Mandarin, apricots, peaches, grape, fichi, water-melons, melons, raspberries, strawberries, chestnuts, walnuts, nuts, almonds, pistachio nuts. (Moderate the consumption of grape, bananas, fichi, fruit juices – Consume the fruit far away from the main meals)
  • Vegetables: turnips, carrots, salads, spinach, broccoli, cabbages, tomatoes, eggplants, capsicum, zucchini, onions.
  • Olive oil
  • Aromatic grass: basil, thymus, oregano, garlic.
  • Milk and cheeses (Prefer milk and yogurt foamed or partially foamed, fresh and lean cheeses – Avoid cream and butter – Consume cheeses with moderation)
  • Wine

Health effects of the Mediterranean cuisine

• Interview with world heart scan authority, Dr. John Rumberger – Dr. John Rumberger is among the U.S’s foremost authorities on heart scanning. A widely published author and scientist with doctoral degrees in medicine and engineering, Dr. Rumberger brings an unusual depth of insight into the application of technology to heart disease prevention. He is the author of a new book, The Way Diet.

Question: Based on your book, The Way Diet, we understand that you advocate gravitating away from processed foods and incorporating more nuts, monounsaturated oils, lean proteins like fish, and a reduction in processed carbohydrates. You’ve also been a proponent of the Mediterranean diet that demonstrated a dramatic reduction in cardiovascular events in the Lyon Heart Study.

Has your philosophy or practice regarding nutritional strategies evolved or changed in any way since your book was published?

Dr. Rumberger: No, the strategies put forward in The Way Diet have, if anything, been reinforced by further and further research in selecting foods that are naturally high in anti-oxidants with lean sources of protein and reduced intake of processed sugar-containing preparations. The book, however, is what I call a ‘philosophy’ book which looks at three major aspects: proper diet, adequate exercise, and stress management. I also include some recipes which follow the dietary plans, but are done using ingredients that are commonly found in the average home.

From Amazon reviews of his book: I really enjoyed reading this book. It gives you information on everything you need to be healthy. My doctor recommended it to me. I am 54 and had a triple bypass 2 1/2 years ago and now I am pre-diabetic. The Way Diet certainly is an easy to follow program and is designed to help you change your lifestyle, rather than be a new fad diet. It isn’t a quick fix. I recommend this for everyone. I have tried so many “fad” diets and I always go back to my original weight or more.

More review on this book here

• Fighting Prostate Cancer: Eat Your Way to Victory – Once again, it looks like the typical American diet may not be so good for your health. Here are foods that may help fight prostate cancer. And in certain Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Italy, the rate of prostate cancer is also low; some researchers speculate that diet is a factor there, as well.

To help reduce the risk you can use:

• Red Fruits and Vegetables where find the Lycopene . It is part of a group of compounds called carotenoids that are known for their antioxidant properties, which may include the ability to inhibit cancer.
  Watermelon and pink grapefruit contain lycopene, but tomato-based foods contain the most. When tomato-based foods are heated and mixed with a small amount of oil, the lycopene absorption is maximized.
• A recent study from the Fred Hutchinson Center in Seattle confirms that all vegetables may help reduce the risk of prostate cancer. Eating a lot of vegetables can cut your risk of prostate cancer by about 45%. And if those vegetables are from the cruciferous family, like cabbage and broccoli, you may reduce your risk even further.
• A recent study at Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research noted that the antioxidant effects of vitamin E seem to halt prostate tumor growth in mice, which was initially triggered by a high-fat diet.

Prostate cancer is a hormone-dependent cancer. Any aspect of the diet that binds hormones could have a positive effect on prostate health. Dietary fiber, for instance, may remove hormones from the system. It has been found that men who eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains—all excellent sources of fiber—have lower circulating levels of male hormones.

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in America, affecting 1 in 6 men. The older you are, the more likely you are to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Although only 1 in 10,000 under age 40 will be diagnosed, the rate shoots up to 1 in 39 for ages 40 to 59, and 1 in 14 for ages 60 to 69. In fact, more than 65% of all prostate cancers are diagnosed in men over the age of 65.

• Mediterranean diet and all-causes mortality after myocardial infarction – Myocardial infarction patients can respond positively to simple dietary advice, and this can be expected to lead to a substantial reduction in the risk of early death. Regardless of any drug treatment prescribed, clinicians should routinely advise patients with myocardial infarction to increase their frequency of consumption of Mediterranean foods.

Myocardial infarction, more commonly known as a heart attack, is a medical condition that occurs when the blood supply to a part of the heart is interrupted.

Benefits of common foods in this diet program

• Mediterranean Diet: Why You Should Make Extra Virgin Olive Oil Part of Your Diet – In a study conducted by Montoya and associates, The study showed that when people followed the diet rich in extra virgin olive oil, their levels of bad cholesterol went down and their blood pressure decreased 5 to 6 percent.

The author suggests to choose the Extra virgin olive oil instead of the refined oil because the firt one has more good fats.

• Diabetic Diets and Wine – Raising a Glass to the Mediterranean Diet – The author explains 4 reasons why consume Red wine and its health benefits

1. Recent studies have shown that moderate consumption of wine, however, can actually help lower blood sugar.
2. Many studies have shown that alcohol has a profound effect on regulating cholesterol and protecting the body against heart attacks, coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis and other heart complications.
3. A recent study showed that people with diabetes who drank a moderate amount of alcohol daily reduced their risk of coronary heart disease by 60% compared to a 40% reduction in people without diabetes.
4. Adding 1-2 glasses of wine per day to diabetic diets is enough to gain the health benefits outlined above.

• Mediterranean Diet – How to Lower Cholesterol Effortlessly by Including More Tomatoes in Your Diet – The traditional Mediterranean diet, rich in tomatoes, tomato products, and other carotenoids has been associated with a lower incidence of chronic heart disease . Because tomatoes contain lycopene. Lycopene has been identified as the responsible substance for the antioxidant effects

The author give us some tips on how to add more Lycopene in our diets:

• Process the tomatoes with heat.
• Eat fresh tomatoes with olive oil.
• Eat tomatoes with other vegetables or fruit.
• Use red, ripe tomatoes than green or yellow.
• Eat pasta with tomato sauce.
• Add some tomato slices to your sandwich.
• Look for locally grown tomatoes.

• More Omega-3s essential, study says – Fatty-acids contained in fish are being touted as beneficial — if not a cure — for a myriad of conditions, including cancer, depression, attention disorders, as well as cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s disease. Fish is low in saturated fat and cholesterol and is a good source of protein.

Confusion over unwanted chemicals like mercury in fish may have lowered consumption, he added. Wild fish is less likely to be contaminated.

• Spinach and Eggs Can Help Your Vision – Two nutrients found in eggs, spinach and other leafy green vegetables (The two nutrients, lutein and zeaxanthin, are both carotenoids — compounds that give many fruits and vegetables a yellow color.) offer some protection against the most common cause of blindness among the elderly.

More:

• Eye health and Lutein
• Essential Role of Zeaxanthin in Eye Health
• Lutein And Zeaxanthin May Offer Protection Against MD

Cooking Mediterranean healthy recipes

• Cooking advice to make your life easier – The below cooking advice and instructions is a step-by-step how to guide on the preparation of basic ingredients popular in the Mediterranean diet. How to peel tomatoes, how to roast chestnuts, how to cook pasta or chick peas are some of the cooking basics you’ll find.

New dieting problems

• Greek diet fuels heart problems – Doctors said at a conference in Athens yesterday that people from Italy, France and Spain are not exposed to a higher risk of heart disease due to their changing lifestyles.

Greeks, who were ranked in the low-risk group for heart problems, have been upped to medium risk as they have turned their back on healthier living and the Mediterranean cuisine.

• Binge Drinking On The Rise In Mediterranean Countries, Study Suggests – Binge drinking has traditionally been more common in Anglo-Saxon and northern European countries, known as “dry drinking cultures,” than it has been in Mediterranean countries. However, a study of drinking among adults in the Madrid region of Spain indicates that binge drinking is on the rise.

Today the generally accepted definition of binge drinking in the United States is the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks.