23 May 2014 The secret of the Mediterranean diet? There is no secret
Researchers claim that nitro fatty acids, formed when olive oil and vegetables are eaten together, are the key to the healthy Mediterranean diet. But such a reductionist approach to food and health is unhelpful.
Whoop-de-doo, researchers at King’s College London and the University of California claim to have identified the “secret” underpinning the oft-quoted healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet.
From their lab tests on mice (not just any old mice, genetically modified ones) they conclude that when olive oil and vegetables are eaten together, they form nitro fatty acids that help lower blood pressure – a risk factor for heart disease – by blocking the enzyme epoxide hydrolase.
The lead researcher, Professor Philip Eaton, describes the chemical reaction of oil and vegetable as “nature’s protective mechanism”, and sees a commercial future in it.
“If we can tap into this we could make new drugs for treating high blood pressure and preventing heart disease.” Nitro fatty acids could soon be touted as the next pharmaceutical preventative for cardiovascular disease. Pills aside, though, if nitro fatty acids are indeed the magic formula on which the healthy Mediterranean diet is predicated, should we be conducting our own personal diet experiments to take on board this revelation?
Initially, the more holistic notion that health and slimness lies in combining food groups, rather than fixating on an ever-changing procession of “superfoods”, has its attractions – not least because few of us lick our lips at the prospect of eating a bucketload of kale, or can afford to breakfast daily on chia seeds and blueberries. Combining salads and vegetables with oil is hardly onerous, but can this double act really be the holy grail of heart health?
Cynicism is surely merited. This study was part-funded by the British Heart Foundation, a body that finds itself on a sticky wicket because its rote script – the oft-quoted “lipid hypothesis” that eating fat causes heart disease – has gone into meltdown like a defrosting fridge. In nitro fatty acids, the BHF has a way to explain the apparent anomaly that a Mediterranean diet is healthy, even though it contains its dietary villain.
Bear in mind that the BHF, along with other charities and the public health establishment, has evangelised a selectively edited, much traduced, some might say mythical account of the Mediterranean diet. The longevity of Mediterranean populations, we were assured, was explained by their high consumption of fruit and vegetables (true), and low consumption of red meat and saturated fat (false)…..