The Mediterranean diet is a powerful ally for health even after a cancer diagnosis. Patients who eat according to the dictates of our food tradition live longer and have a reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality, -60%. In general, mortality is reduced by 32%. This is revealed by an Italian study carried out within the Umberto Project, conducted by the Joint Research Platform Umberto Veronesi Foundation – Department of Epidemiology and Prevention of the Irccs Neuromed of Pozzilli, in collaboration with the University Lum ‘Giuseppe Degennaro’ of Casamassima in the Bari area.
The research, published in Jacc CardioOncology, examined data from 800 Italian adults, both men and women, who had already been diagnosed with cancer at the time of enrollment in the Moli-sani study, between 2005 and 2010. The participants were followed for over 13 years, and detailed information on their food consumption during the year preceding enrollment was available for all of them.
“The main message of this study – comments Licia Iacoviello, director of the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention of the IRCCS Neuromed and Full Professor of General and Applied Hygiene at the LUM University – is that we must never stop doing prevention. In fact, our data show that people who had had a tumor and who subsequently reported a Mediterranean diet had a lower risk of mortality than those who had not followed the Mediterranean Diet. The benefit was particularly evident for cardiovascular mortality. Another important message of this study – continues Licia Iacoviello – is that tumors and cardiovascular diseases, even if apparently different, share the same risk factors. This is what is known in literature as ‘common soil’, a common ground from which these different pathologies originate”.
“The beneficial role of the Mediterranean diet in the primary prevention of some tumors is well known in the literature,” says Marialaura Bonaccio, first author of the study and Co-Principal Investigator of the Joint Research Platform at Irccs Neuromed. “However, little is known about the potential benefits that this dietary model can have for those who have already received a cancer diagnosis.”
The researchers therefore analyzed the role of the Mediterranean diet in relation to mortality in people who already had a history of cancer at the time of enrollment in the Moli-sani study, one of the largest population cohorts in Europe. With the aim of verifying to what extent a healthy diet can prolong survival. “The results of our study – explains Bonaccio – indicate that people who had a tumor and reported
high adherence to a Mediterranean diet had a 32% lower risk of mortality compared to participants who did not follow the Mediterranean diet. The benefit was particularly evident for cardiovascular mortality, which was reduced by 60%”.
“The Mediterranean diet – recalls Chiara Tonelli, president of the Scientific Committee of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation – is mainly composed of foods such as fruit, vegetables and olive oil, which are natural sources of antioxidant compounds, which could explain the observed advantage in terms of mortality not only for cancer, but also for cardiovascular diseases, which can be reduced by diets particularly rich in these bioactive compounds”.
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