Earn well? Then Mediterranean diet is likely to benefit you more
The European eating pattern doesn’t show positive health results if you are less educated and poor
The Mediterranean diet, that emphasises eating plant-based foods, including vegetables, nuts, fruits and whole grains, in addition to fish and poultry, does not benefit everyone, finds a recent study. It suggests people with higher incomes or more education, or a combination of the two, experience the cardiovascular advantages associated with the diet.
The Italian study, conducted by a team of researchers at the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention led by Giovanni de Gaetano, thus reveals that benefits are strongly influenced by the socioeconomic position of people.
Basically, given a comparable adherence to this eating pattern, the study has shown that the reduction in cardiovascular risk is observed only in people with higher educational level and/or greater household income.
“The cardiovascular benefits associated with the Mediterranean diet in a general population are well known – says Marialaura Bonaccio, researcher at the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention and first author of the study – Yet for the first time our study has revealed that the socioeconomic position is able to modulate the health advantages linked to Mediterranean diet. ”
“Given a comparable adherence to the Mediterranean diet, the most advantaged groups were more likely to report a larger number of indices of high quality diet as opposed to people with low socioeconomic status – explains Licia Iacoviello, head of the Laboratory of nutritional and molecular Epidemiology at the Department – We have also found a socioeconomic gradient in the consumption of whole-grain products and in the preferred cooking methods. These substantial differences in consuming products belonging to Mediterranean diet lead us to think that quality of foods may be as important for health as quantity and frequency of intake”.