Crete Diet
The Crete diet , often also called the Mediterranean diet , is a form of nutrition that is inspired by the traditional cuisine in the various Mediterranean countries, which is often colloquially referred to as Mediterranean cuisine ; but it is not identical with this one. The diet in these countries is considered to be particularly healthy, as several studies in recent decades have shown that the inhabitants of the Mediterranean regions suffer less from cardiovascular diseases and that the people on the island of Crete in particular have a life expectancy above the European average to have.
However, the nutritional recommendations published as the Mediterranean diet do not correspond to the actual everyday diet in countries such as Italy , France , Spain and Greece, and also not the usual ones in Crete today. The name is primarily a marketing term used by authors or a catchphrase for a certain form of nutrition.
It is likely that the 16 countries bordering on the Mediterranean, with such a range of different races, climates, and products, can enjoy as much unhealthy food as the rest of the world, and the myth of an universal, simple, beneficial diet [ …] Is a salutary ideal rather than a reality.
“It can be assumed that in the 16 countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, with its range of different ethnicities , climates and products, you can eat just as unhealthily as in the rest of the world, and the myth of a universal, simple, health-promoting diet [ ...] is more of an ideal of health than reality "
Diet principles
The nutritional recommendations published under the term Crete Diet or Mediterranean Diet represent a special selection of foods that are regularly eaten in the Mediterranean region. The focus is on vegetables , salad , fruit , fish , garlic , little red meat , the use of olive oil and a maximum of one glass of red wine per day . The preparation recommendations, however, differ greatly from traditional Mediterranean cuisine, which generally uses plenty of fat for frying and often eats fried food. On average, every inhabitant of Crete consumes 31 liters of olive oil per year. Only in coastal areas and on islands is the consumption of fish and seafood really dominant ; significantly more wine is also consumed.
There are variants of the Mediterranean diet that are specifically advertised as a weight loss diet . Basically, however, it is a balanced mixed diet that is designed as permanent nutrition. Without a correspondingly lower supply of nutritional energy , no weight loss is to be expected from this diet .
Studies
The first study that gave indications of a particularly healthy way of life in Crete was the so-called " Seven Country Study " by Ancel Keys in the 1950s and 1960s over a period of 15 years. The incidence of vascular and cancerous diseases in several countries was examined.
The lowest disease rate was in Crete at that time, and people's life expectancy was significantly higher. There were hardly any cases of arteriosclerosis and significantly fewer heart attacks than the average. Keys determined the diet on Crete during the pre-Easter fasting period and thus ignored the usual meat and cheese consumption of the islanders.
According to the WHO , almost 40 times more people died of coronary artery disease in the United States in the 1980s than in Crete. On the basis of these results, scientists came to the conclusion that diet was the decisive factor, which therefore became the focus of interest. Above all, olive oil, which is used in abundance, has been said to have health-promoting effects, as it does not increase cholesterol levels .
The Lyon Diet Heart Study in the 1990s, in which heart attack patients were divided into two groups and followed for four years, is often cited as further evidence of the health-promoting effects of the Mediterranean diet ; one of them ate the Cretan diet. As a result, it was determined that the "Crete group" suffered fewer re-infarcts and the cardiovascular risk was 50 percent lower. However, this study also found that this diet did not affect cholesterol levels as expected, nor did it affect blood pressure or body mass index . In most cases it is also not mentioned that in this study the olive oil was partially replaced by rapeseed oil , which is not used in Mediterranean cuisine. Rapeseed oil has a completely different composition than olive oil and contains significantly more alpha-linolenic acid .
In 2003, researchers from the University of Athens (Antonia Trichopoulou et al.) Published results in which current eating habits in Greece and other countries were related to mortality and heart disease. It was found that a pronounced Mediterranean diet increases life expectancy, statistically by one year in a 60-year-old man. According to an American study, the results of which were published in 2006, this diet also significantly reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer's . It is rarely pointed out in publications that the Greek study showed a life-prolonging effect of the Mediterranean diet for Greece and Spain, but none for people in Germany and the Netherlands if they ate this type of diet. On the contrary, German supporters of this diet died statistically even earlier.
There was renewed confirmation for the Mediterranean diet in 2013 with a study in which it was shown that the rate of severe cardiovascular events could be reduced by 30 percent.
Evaluation and criticism
The Mediterranean diet is considered a balanced mixed diet and is suitable for permanent nutrition. Publications in German-speaking countries often also mention wholemeal products as components , which in fact do not play a significant role in Mediterranean countries, if they are eaten at all.
According to the findings of gerontology , life expectancy depends on various factors and cannot be influenced by diet alone. The diet recommendations are based on the diet of hard-working mountain farmers in Crete in the 1950s and 1960s, whose living conditions differ significantly from the current living conditions of most people in industrialized nations. In the meantime, one in three young people in Crete is overweight due to excessive consumption of nutritional energy and insufficient exercise in office jobs. A lower rate of lifestyle diseases cannot necessarily be attributed to diet alone.
The traditional food in Crete is very high in fat. But “by no means every other European people is genetically adapted to such an enormous fat consumption - which can be demonstrated on different chromosomes. Comparative meals under scientific control showed that the blood lipid levels in Cretans normalize much faster after a meal than in Northern Europeans. With a similarly high consumption of olive oil, they would have to fear heart disease. "
It is often not indicated that the results of the study merely establish correlations between the state of health of the participants and their eating habits, which should not be confused with causal evidence. In fact, these are just hypotheses, and these have been changed several times in the case of the Crete Diet. One assumption is that the oil from Cretan olives ( koroneiki ) is particularly healthy because it contains a higher proportion of vitamins and enzymes . But this also means that other types of olive oil do not have the same health-promoting effect.
See also
Web links
- Michael Brendler: Recent studies: Mediterranean diet is healthy. on: stuttgarter-zeitung.de , March 2, 2013, accessed on March 3, 2013.
- Sebastian Schaffer, Stephanie Schmitt-Schillig, Gunter P. Eckert, Walter E. Müller: Mediterranean nutrition: benefits and scientific principles. In: Pharmaceutical newspaper. 21/2005.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b GEO. Issue 4/2005, p. 33.
- ↑ Antje Zimmermann: Crete Diet. ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) WDR report
- ↑ Udo Pollmer : Is Cholesterol Harming? Invented everything! In: Meal , Deutschlandfunk Kultur , June 5, 2015.
- ↑ a b Quarks & Co. ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Mediterranean for the heart and circulation? (PDF; 2.4 MB) Rapeseed oil information with information on the Lyon study
- ↑ Study: Healthy Mediterranean Diet Reduces Alzheimer's Risk. ( Memento of the original from April 29, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt. April 18, 2006.
- ↑ The Mediterranean diet is only useful in the Mediterranean. on: welt.de , April 15, 2005.
- ↑ R. Estruch, E. Ros, J. Salas-Salvadó, MI Covas, D. Pharm, D. Corella, F. Aros, E. Gómez-Gracia, V. Ruiz-Gutiérrez, M. Fiol, J. Lapetra, RM Lamuela-Raventos, L. Serra-Majem, X. Pintó, J. Basora, MA Muñoz, JV Sorlí, JA Martínez, MA Martínez-González: Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet. In: N Engl J Med. 25 Feb 2013 doi: 10.1056 / NEJMoa1200303
- ^ WDR report (2002) ( Memento from January 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
