Keys wasn’t completely wrong: overindulgence in foods high in saturated fats is indeed linked to higher rates of heart disease. But the reverse — a low-fat diet devoid of animal foods and heavy on the carbs — has proven to be equally problematic.
Still, the myth of the Mediterranean Diet as a nutritional cure-all lives on. For example: a recent news story focused on the small Italian village of Acciaroli because of the fact that 81 of its 700 or so residents are over 100 years old.
How so? It’s thanks to the Mediterranean Diet, that wonderful combination of fresh veggies, fruits, olive oil and seafood. Or so the media coverage (www.thelocoal.it) suggested.
Granted, that lineup beats the dietary choices for most of the rest of us. We could all do with eating more vegetables and fruits. But keep in mind all the other factors at play here.
For one, the residents of Acciaroli live in one of the most beautiful areas of the world, the southern Italian coast, a place you’d kill to have a villa where you could spend a couple months every year living off local produce and the daily catch of fresh fish. Keys himself spent many years in the region, and it isn’t idle speculation to assume that the Mediterranean lifestyle was as big a part of his enthusiasm for the diet as the food itself.
But stick any of those Italian centenarians on a CTA platform during rush hour in Chicago, or fighting for a seat every morning on a New York subway car, or suffering through endless creep-and-crawl on an LA freeway for most of their adult lives and see how gracefully they glide into their second century.
Indeed, the researchers from Rome’s Sapienza University and the San Diego School of Medicine who studied the residents of Acciaroli noted the population not only has the strong bonds that generations of living in a small village would naturally encourage, but that virtually everyone works outdoors, fishing, gardening and tending to their households with a level of manual labor we Westerners diligently avoid.
There’s no exaggerating the impact of close social ties, a deep connection to the land (and the sea), and a lifestyle that requires vigorous exercise on a daily basis.
Not only that, but the scientists discovered the centenarians exhibited lower levels of the hormone adrenomedullin, a factor that seems to affect “microcirculation,” the flow of blood through the body’s microscopic capillaries.
Capillary blood vessels tend to degenerate in old age, but in seniors all along the Cilento region in southern Italy adrenomedullin was present “in a much reduced quantity . . . and seems to act as a powerful protecting factor, helping the optimal development of microcirculation,” according to a news release about the research.
The bottom line is that the Mediterranean Diet is an excellent pathway to nutritional well-being — especially when all those fruits, vegetables and seafood are combined with lots of sunshine, fresh air, outdoor exercise, and a slow-paced lifestyle enjoyed by family and friends going back generations in one of the world’s most postcard-picturesque locations.
Under those conditions, who wouldn’t want to keep going past 100?
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