The Mediterranean Diet and Heart Health

A Mediterranean diet doesn’t just stave off heart disease. New research suggests it can help heart patients stay healthy too.

It’s true that eating a Mediterranean-style diet can help lower one’s risk of heart disease. But even if you’ve already been diagnosed with heart disease, that doesn’t mean you have nothing to gain.
A new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that Mediterranean-style diets can help prevent future cardiac events (like chest pains or heart attacks) in people who already have heart disease.
People who ate the most vegetables, salads and nuts, in particular, lowered their risk of repeat heart trouble the most — compared with those who ate the least of these heart-healthy ingredients.
The key players of a Mediterranean diet include: plenty of unprocessed plant-based foods, like vegetables, fruit, legumes and whole grains; herbs, spices and olive oil instead of salt and butter; fish; and nuts — and very little red or processed meat.