Eat Right => Less Cancer; (PS Yea, Cheese)
Cancer and Mediterranean Dietary Traditions
+ Author Affiliations
- Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Athens Medical School, Greece [A. T., P. L., D. T.], and Department
of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 [P. L., H. K., D. T.]
Abstract
The incidence of cancer overall in Mediterranean countries is lower than
in Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
This is mostly accounted for by the lower incidence among Mediterranean
countries of cancer of the large bowel, breast, endometrium, and
prostate. These forms of cancer have been linked to dietary factors,
particularly low consumption of vegetables and fruit, and to a certain
extent, high consumption of meat. The traditional Mediterranean diet is
characterized by high consumption of foods of plant origin, relatively
low consumption of red meat, and high consumption of olive oil, which
in several studies has been reported to be more beneficial against
cancer than other forms of added lipids. By taking into account the
established or presumed nutritional causation of major forms of cancer
and the composition of the traditional Mediterranean diet, estimates
can be derived concerning the fraction of cancer occurrence in highly
developed Western countries that could be attributed to their diets in
comparison with the healthy traditional Mediterranean diet. Although
estimates can only be crude, it can be calculated that up to 25% of
the incidence of colorectal cancer, ∼15% of the incidence of breast
cancer, and ∼10% of the incidence of prostate, pancreas, and
endometrial cancer could be prevented if the populations of highly
developed Western countries could shift to the traditional healthy
Mediterranean diet.
The Mini-Gastric Bypass (MGB) 