A Mediterranean-style lifestyle offers health benefits even if you’re stuck in Britain.
Adopting Mediterranean habits such as regular naps and socialising with friends can cut the chance of premature death for Britons, a new study suggests.
The traditional lifestyle of countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece is recommended by global health experts as key to a longer and healthier life.
It includes a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains, with low sugar and salt intake, as well as making time for socialising, resting, physical activity and eating.
Now research involving more than 110,000 adults in Britain has found that those who adhere most closely to those habits are less likely to die prematurely or die from cancer.
Getting plenty of rest and exercise, and making time to socialise with friends, appear particularly key in reducing the chances of dying as a result of a heart attack or stroke.
“This study suggests that it’s possible for non-Mediterranean populations to adopt the Mediterranean diet using locally available products and to adopt the overall Mediterranean lifestyle within their own cultural contexts,” said lead author Mercedes Sotos Prieto, Ramon y Cajal research fellow at La Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and adjunct assistant professor of environmental health at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in the US. “We’re seeing the transferability of the lifestyle and its positive effects on health.”
Studies have linked a Mediterranean lifestyle with health benefits including lower risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, frailty, pain, diabetes and other metabolic disorders, dementia and early death. However, most have been carried out on populations that live in Mediterranean countries.
For the new study, researchers used data from 110,799 adults taking part in the UK Biobank study.
People aged 45 to 70 from England, Wales and Scotland provided detailed information about their diet and lifestyle habits.
They were scored according to how closely they fitted the Mediterranean ideal in three categories — “food consumption”, or intake of key foods such as fruits and whole grains, “dietary habits”, such as limiting salt and choosing healthy drinks, and “physical activity, rest, and social habits and conviviality”, including habits such as taking regular naps, exercising and spending time with friends.
Participants were tracked for an average of nine years. During the study 4,247 people died, including 2,401 from cancer and 731 from cardiovascular disease, which includes heart attacks and strokes.
Researchers found that the quarter of people with the highest Mediterranean lifestyle scores were 29 per cent less likely to die from any cause compared to those with the lowest scores.
They were also 28 per cent less likely to die from cancer, according to the study, which has been published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
Each category was independently linked to both lower risks of death from any cause and lower risk of cancer death.
The “physical activity, rest, and social habits and conviviality” category was most strongly linked to those lowered risks, and also linked with lower chances of dying from heart attacks or strokes.
The researchers concluded that adopting the habits of the Mediterranean was both possible and part of a healthy lifestyle in Britain.
Tracy Parker, heart health dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said: “It’s long been known that balanced diets like the Mediterranean-style diet can help you to lower your risk of developing heart and circulatory diseases and the risk factors for them, such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. This study provides further evidence for this.
“It’s easy to do — make sure you are eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, beans, lentils, wholegrains, fish, nuts and seeds, along with some low-fat dairy and fat from unsaturated sources like olive oil. It’s also important to eat less processed meat, salt, and sweet treats.”