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How do we know what is healthy?
My grandfather smoked ‘roll-your-own’, unfiltered cigarettes from the age of 13, survived Gallipoli, fought in two world wars, and worked hard on a Malee farm in between. He lived to be a healthy eighty five years of age. He ate porridge and treacle for breakfast, ate large serves of meat at least twice a day (cooked in dripping) the same few vegetables day in day
out, and always a generous helping of dessert (smothered in cream or custard).
To live to be a healthy eighty-five year old, is this what we should do? No, obviously not, there are three important points to take from this example:
- An anecdote from 1 person does not make convincing evidence for healthy behaviour…he may have just been lucky..
- In fact while we look at our forbears and think that everything about their diet was unhealthy….what did they NOT eat (that we do eat!) was also important.
- You cannot divorce diet and activity. My grandfather burned up the seemingly excess energy he ate through physical activity. Overweight is becoming more of a problem, partly because of diet but also because we are less active
What information about nutrition do we trust?
Scientists try and answer the above question through research. They look at whole populations over time and find out what positive characteristics there are associated with good health. These are called epidemiological studies. Typical diets of the Mediterranean and Asian dietary patterns have healthful characteristics… they are associated with a low incidence of
heart disease and cancer.
In addition, there are studies which test different types of diets with a segment of the population. There are many of these studies which also show that the Mediterranean diet has significant health benefits.
A major study in 1959 of approximately 13000 men, called the "Seven Countries Study" showed that Crete was the area in Europe with the lowest heart disease prevalence and incidence, explained by their dietary pattern and physical activity.
Long life expectancy of the European Mediterranean populations has been observed in spite of high prevalence of smoking and gaps in health services. This longevity is also proposed to be the result of the overall dietary pattern.
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