(16-01-06) Search for the original Mediterranean diet(s).

Truswell AS, Noah A.

Human Nutrition Unit, Building G.08, University of Sydney, NSW 2006.

Eighteen countries have coasts on the Mediterranean Sea, all with different diets. But the ideal diet for today's nutritionists seems to be what Italians and Greeks were eating as their countries started to recover from being battlefields in World War II. It would be helpful to have these diets for reference in quantitative terms. In Italy individual intakes were measured by the Seven Country Study team at three sites in 1960 and 1961. NICOTERA is a small seaside town on the toe of Italy. MONTEGIORGIO (farming community) is in the middle of Italy, 20 km above the Adriatic coast. CREVALCORE up north is in the Po valley, near Bolonga. Only a small survey was done in Nicotera, though it is the most Mediterranean site. More measurements were made at the central and northern sites. Intakes (only for men) were first published (1964) as percent total calories from food groups. Foods in g/day were not published until 1989 (for men), only for Montegiorgio and Crevalcore. Food figures (g/day) for Nicotera, (men and women) appear in a paper Flaminio Fidanza gave in London in 1991. In these 3 surveys by Keys et al., much more meat and milk was consumed in Crevalcore, more vegetables and cereals in Nicotera. The Euratom household consumption study in the early 1960s also reported that north Italians ate more meat, milk and butter and less fruits, vegetables and olive oil than in the south. In Greece, Keys et al., measured food intakes, only on the islands of CRETE and CORFU. Crete was still very poor after the War. A large case study of Crete as an underdeveloped area had been made by Allbaugh in 1948. Their household diet records give good descriptions of the Cretan diet at that time. 1960 food intake records in Crete and Corfu by Keys et al., were lost but Kromhout and Bloemberg (2002) reconstructed the general characteristics, expressed in g/day of food groups for men. Food intakes were measured at a sixth Mediterranean site by the Seven Country team in 1960, in Dalmatia, now coastal Croatia. Data for men for these six Mediterranean cohorts of 45 years ago are collected, together with Australia (1995).

PMID: 16326567 [PubMed - in process]

Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2005;14 Suppl:S81.

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