In February of this year the result of an exciting and global healthcare impacting study were reported in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. 7447 people who were considered at high risk for heart followed one of three plans; usual diet, Mediterranean diet pattern supplemented with olive oil, or Mediterranean diet pattern supplemented with nuts. During 4.8 years of follow-up, the Med diet plus olive oil group experienced 30% fewer cardiovascular events, and the Med diet plus nuts experienced 28% fewer cardiovascular events, compared to the usual diet group.⁽¹⁾ The study was stopped early due to how incredible these results were! It was “unethical” not to offer counselling on Mediterranean dietary pattern to people in the usual diet group.

This study is a continuation of the much older Lyon Heart Study, a study that counselled heart attack survivors on how to follow a Mediterranean dietary pattern. This older study (1999) found that people who followed a Mediterranean diet pattern (plus took all medications for heart attack survivors) were 67% less likely to suffer a cardiovascular event compared to people who took all medications yet received no diet advice.⁽²⁾ To this day, no medication has been able to match such a large magnitude of benefit for people who survived a heart attack as was achieved by counselling to follow a Mediterranean diet! Why has taken 14 years to do a follow- up study?