Eating a traditional Mediterranean diet — more vegetables, fruits, and fish, and fewer animal products — does seem to ward off heart disease, an Australian study shows, and it may be especially beneficial for people with diabetes.

Mediterranean-born immigrants in Australia have lower death rates from heart disease than native-born Australians, note Dr. Linton R. Harriss, from Monash University in Melbourne, and colleagues. This prompted them to investigate dietary patterns in relation to heart-related mortality “in an ethnically diverse population.”

The study involved over 40,000 men and women, aged between 40 and 69 years, 24 percent of whom were native-born Mediterranean while the rest were native-born Australian. They were followed for ten years.

The researchers used food questionnaires to calculate participants’ intake of Mediterranean foods, vegetables, fruits, and meats. The results of the study are published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“Those people in our study that were in the highest category of the Mediterranean foods pattern (i.e. most frequently consumed traditional Mediterranean foods) had a 30 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to those who were in the lowest category,” Harriss told Reuters Health.

The investigators found that a Mediterranean-style diet “may be most beneficial for persons with diabetes.”

Among the study participants with diabetes, Harriss said, “Our results suggest that the Mediterranean diet may lower mortality from ischemic heart disease.” However, because those results are based on a small sub-sample, “more research needs to be performed to investigate these findings better.”

The protective effect of a Mediterranean diet pattern against heart-related death was strongest in people who were free of heart disease at the outset. Nonetheless, “the Mediterranean foods pattern showed benefits whether we included or excluded people with a history of cardiovascular disease,” Harriss said.

SOURCE: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 2007

Many people believe potentially harmful myths about epilepsy, a study from University College London suggests.

A third would put something in the mouth of a person having a seizure to stop them swallowing their tongue - but doing so could block their airways. And 67% of the 4,605 people asked would call an ambulance immediately, Epilepsy and Behavior journal reports. This is only needed for first seizures, those lasting over five minutes, if the person is hurt or has several seizures. Read more »

A study carried out by researchers at the University College London Institute of Child Health (ICH) demonstrates a possible link between the length of maternal working hours and a rise in childhood obesity.

Researchers at the ICH Centre for Paediatric Epidemiology have studied 13,113 children and their families in the Millennium Cohort Study, born in the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2002, and followed since birth.

The children were 14 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese at age three if their mothers had been employed since their birth. In high-earning families (annual income £33,000 or more), children were 10 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese for each extra 10 hours a week their mother worked. Their partner’s employment was not related to early childhood obesity.

This suggests that long hours of maternal employment rather than lack of money may reduce children’s access to healthy foods and physical activity. More needs to be learned about the factors linking maternal employment and childhood obesity. For example, little is known about diet or physical activity in children with and without working mothers.

Professor Tim Cole at ICH, an author on the paper, said: “We need to identify risk factors for obesity in young children to help inform policy. Maternal employment is just one of many risk factors for obesity in children, but these results demonstrate that working parents need additional support, such as more opportunities to work flexible hours.”

Source: UCL Institute of Child Health

Website: www.ich.ucl.ac.uk