Mediterranean diet may reduce risk of heart disease in women by nearly 25%, study finds

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Closely following a Mediterranean diet can reduce a woman’s risk of heart disease and death by nearly 25%, according to a new analysis of 16 studies.

“This study adds to what is already known about the cardiovascular benefits of a Mediterranean diet, but further reiterates that it may be equally beneficial in women as in men,” the author said. Principal Sarah Zaman, Associate Professor at Westmead. University of Sydney Center for Applied Research, in an email.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women and men worldwide, according to World Health Organization. Coronary artery disease kills over twice as many women than breast cancer in the UK, while in 2020 one in five deaths among women in the US was due to heart disease.

Still, few heart studies have looked specifically at women, Zaman said.

“It’s long been known that eating Mediterranean-style is good for the heart, but it’s encouraging to see that this research suggests that when we look at women separately from men, the benefits remain,” said Victoria Taylor, senior dietitian at British Heart Foundation, in a statement. She did not participate in the study.

Analysis, published Wednesday in the journal Heart, combined studies on the Mediterranean diet, separating details about women from men. Women received points for higher consumption of beneficial foods such as vegetables and fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seafood, and lower consumption of red and processed meats, which are all part of the Mediterranean diet.

According to the study, women who followed the Mediterranean diet most closely had a 24% lower risk of heart disease and a 23% lower risk of premature death than women who barely followed the diet. There was also a drop in deaths from stroke, but this was not statistically significant, according to the study.

“I’m excited to finally see data in women, because this data isn’t shown or isn’t powerful enough in previous studies to work equally well in women as it does in men,” said cardiologist Dr. Roxana Mehran. , who did not participate in the study. Mehran, a professor of medicine, leads interventional cardiovascular research and clinical trials at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

The researchers analyzed the number on men and found almost the same results: “There was a 22% lower risk of heart disease and a 23% lower risk of death in men,” Zaman said.

That’s not surprising, said Dr. David Katz, a preventive medicine and lifestyle and nutrition specialist who was not involved in the study.

“What we previously knew about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet was not gender-specific,” he said, adding that the cardiovascular benefits of a high-quality diet should be the same regardless of gender.

“As a result, this was a ‘reaffirmation study,’ demonstrating that the observed benefits of the Mediterranean diet in both men and women remain statistically robust when only women are considered a major subgroup,” said he said by e-mail.

There were limitations – all 16 studies were observational, meaning they cannot show cause and effect, and they tended to rely on self-reports of food intake, which are inevitably affected by memory recall, Taylor said.

The limitations “are acknowledged by the authors, who also recommend that we interpret their results with caution, but it also supports the need for more gender-specific research,” Taylor said.

“Regardless of your gender, a healthy lifestyle that includes a balanced diet like the Mediterranean-type diet can help reduce your risk of developing heart and circulatory diseases and their risk factors, such as type 2 diabetes. , obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol,” she added.