High-fat Mediterranean diet can keep you healthy: experts

People should stop counting calories and instead focus on nutritional value of foods to fight obesity and heart disease, say experts, including one of Indian-origin, advocating a high-fat Mediterranean-style diet.
"It is time to stop counting the calories, and instead start promoting the nutritional value of foods if we are to rapidly cut illness and death from cardiovascular disease and curb the rising tide of obesity," experts said in an editorial published in the journal Open Heart.
Drawing on published evidence, Aseem Malhotra, from Department of Cardiology, Frimley Park Hospital in UK, James DiNicolantonio, from Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in US and Simon Capewell from University of Liverpool, in UK, argued that like stopping smoking, simple dietary changes can rapidly improve health outcomes at the population level.

For example, boosting omega 3 fatty acid (from fatty fish), olive oil, and nut intake have all been associated with reductions in deaths from all causes and from cardiovascular disease, within months, they said.
But clinicians have failed to act for far too long, amid an excessive focus on the calorific content of food by the food and weight loss industries, despite mounting evidence that it's the nutritional content that matters, experts said.
Daily consumption of a sugary drink (150 calories) is associated with a increased risk of type 2 diabetes whereas daily consumption of a handful of nuts (30 g of walnuts, 15 g of almonds and 15 g hazelnuts) or four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (around 500 calories) is associated with a significantly reduced risk of heart attack and stroke, the experts said.

It has been estimated that increasing nut consumption by two servings a week could stave off 90,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease in the US alone.

"Shifting the focus away from calories and emphasising a dietary pattern that focuses on food quality rather than quantity will help to rapidly reduce obesity, related diseases, and cardiovascular risk," the experts wrote.
Evidence shows that poor diet is consistently responsible for more disease and death than physical inactivity, smoking and alcohol put together, the experts said, calling for sugary drinks to be taxed; government subsidies to make fruit, vegetables, and nuts more affordable; and tighter controls on the marketing of junk food.

"It is time to stop counting calories, and time to instead promote good nutrition and dietary changes that can rapidly and substantially reduce cardiovascular mortality. The evidence indeed supports the mantra that 'food can be the most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison'," they wrote.
"Recommending a high fat Mediterranean type diet and lifestyle to our patients, friends and families, might be a good place to start," they concluded.