The truth about the Mediterranean diet

ZOE Science & Nutrition

ZOE

Nutrition, Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 5.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2024

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Each day this week, we examine one of the world’s most popular diets. Putting the latest scientific evidence under the microscope, we’ll discover these diets' true impact on your health. Today, we’re talking about the Mediterranean diet. This indulgent diet champions vegetables, beans, fish, and even red wine, all with a liberal helping of extra virgin olive oil. However, this relatively high-fat diet undergoes many regional adaptations, and the wide range of options can be confusing, even intimidating, if you’re not that confident in the kitchen. In this special episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan is joined by Christopher Gardner, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and the Director of Nutrition Studies at Stanford Prevention Research Center. Together, they discuss this diet's potential health benefits and pitfalls. 🌱 Try our new plant based wholefood supplement - Daily 30 *Naturally high in copper which contributes to normal energy yielding metabolism and the normal function of the immune system Learn how your body responds to food 👉 zoe.com/podcast for 10% off Follow ZOE on Instagram Timecodes: 00:00 Introduction 00:42 Topic Intro 02:42 What is the concept of the Mediterranean diet? 04:22 Why do we have more data on this diet? 06:08 What are the main differences between this and other diets? 07:30 How much meat is in the Mediterranean diet? 08:20 Is the Mediterranean diet a “whole food” diet? 09:10 How do whole grains fit into this diet? 10:06 Where do oils and legumes come into this? 11:31 What happens when you switch from a US/UK-centric diet to a Mediterranean diet? 13:23 What is going on inside the body to deliver the health benefits? 14:08 What are the possible challenges of the Mediterranean diet? 16:05 Keto vs. Mediterranean diet study 19:09 What's the verdict? 19:50 Outro Mentioned in today’s episode: Adherence to Ketogenic and Mediterranean Study Diets in a Crossover Trial: The Keto-Med Randomized Trial, from Nutrients Effect of a ketogenic diet versus Mediterranean diet on glycated hemoglobin in individuals with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus, from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here. Episode transcripts are available here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Zoe science and nutrition and our special daily series about diets.
0:05.6	Each day this week we're examining one of the world's most popular diets, putting the
0:10.0	latest scientific evidence under the microscope. We'll find out these diet's true impact on your health.
0:15.0	I'm your host Jonathan Wolf and I'll be joined throughout this series by Professor Christopher Gardner.
0:20.0	Hello Christopher.
0:21.0	Good to be here, Jonathan.
0:22.0	Christopher is a professor of medicine at Stanford University
0:25.0	and the Director of Nutrition Studies at the prestigious Stanford Prevention Research Center.
0:30.0	He's one of the world's leading researchers and how our diet impacts our health.
0:33.2	So what's on our plate today, Christopher?
0:35.2	In episode six, Jonathan, we're taking a trip to the Mediterranean for lunch.
0:39.7	Christopher, I definitely know this one. You're talking about the Mediterranean diet, right?
0:48.0	Yes.
0:50.0	So we recently had on the show Professor Walter Willett from Harvard and he's sort of widely hailed I think as sort of the godfather of modern nutrition and he's been talking about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet for decades now.
1:05.6	But what exactly is the Mediterranean diet?
1:09.4	And I like to ask this of all Americans because I feel I visited lots of places in the Mediterranean
1:15.6	and they seem to eat very different food if you're in Spain or Italy or you know
1:22.4	somewhere like Morocco. I think this is an excellent question to ask and the answer is
1:27.7	olive oil. It is only olive oil, eat whatever you want during the day and at night put a jigger of olive oil next to your
1:33.5	bedside gulp that down and in the morning you can claim your Mediterranean.
1:37.6	I feel that maybe there's a bit more to this. Hi I'm delighted that you're here to find out if eating the Mediterranean way can improve your heart
1:48.6	health. If you haven't already, please hit follow in your podcast player, so you'll know whenever a new episode
	...

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