The Mediterranean diet has already been known to promote good cardiovascular health. Now, it may be able to help Alzheimer's patients live longer compared to those who eat a more traditional western diet.

A Mediterranean diet is composed of high intake of vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals, fish, monounsaturated fatty acids and low intake of saturated fatty acids, dairy products, meat and poultry with mild to moderate amount of alcohol.

According to study author Nikos Scarmeas, MD, MSc, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York and member of the American Academy of Neurology:

"Alzheimer's patients who adhered to the diet to a moderate degree lived an average 1.3 years longer than those people who least adhered to the diet.

And those Alzheimer's patients who followed the diet very religiously lived an average four years longer."

[Previous research by Scarmeas and his colleagues demonstrated that healthy people who eat a Mediterranean diet lower their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Studies have also shown that healthy people who follow a Mediterranean diet live longer than those who eat a more traditional Western diet, higher in saturated fat and meats and lower in fruits and vegetables.]

Findings are published in the September 11, 2007, issue of Neurology® - the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

I keep wondering if it is difficult to keep a diet high in vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals and fish and why those in the traditional western diet full of fat and meat find it difficult to switch to the healthier diet.

Maybe that is really difficult to do. Otherwise, health experts wouldn't keep on recommending the Mediterranean Diet to us.

Find more details from the American Academy of Neurology.

[Photo Credit: pennhealth.com]