Switching to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables can prevent about 30 per cent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease, a new study has claimed.
The findings were based on the first major clinical trial to measure the diet's effect on heart risks.
The diet helped those following it even though they did not lose weight and most of them were already taking statins, or blood pressure or diabetes drugs to lower their heart disease risk, the 'New York Times' reported.
"Really impressive," said Rachel Johnson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont and a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association.
"And the really important thing - the coolest thing - is that they used very meaningful end points. They did not look at risk factors like cholesterol of hypertension or weight. They looked at heart attacks and strokes and death. At the end of the day, that is what really matters," said Johnson.
Until now, evidence that Mediterranean diet reduced the risk of heart disease was weak, based mostly on studies showing that people from Mediterranean countries seemed to have lower rates of heart disease - a pattern that could have been attributed to factors other than diet.
Heart disease experts said the study was a triumph because it showed that a diet is powerful in reducing heart disease risk, and it did so using the most rigorous methods.
The study, by Dr Ramon Estruch, a professor of medicine at the University of Barcelona, and his colleagues randomly assigned 7,447 people in Spain who were overweight, smokers, had diabetes or other risk factors for heart disease to follow the Mediterranean diet or a low-fat one.
The study was published on the New England Journal of Medicine's Web site.
