Mediterranean Diet Again Named Best Overall – Olive Oil Times

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The Mediterranean Diet has been named the best over­all diet by the U.S. News & World Report for the sixth straight year.
MedDiet also ranked first in sev­eral indi­vid­ual cat­e­gories, includ­ing the best plant-based diet, the best diet for healthy eat­ing, and in two new cat­e­gories, the best fam­ily-friendly diet and the best diet for the health of bones and joints.
“The rea­sons [that the Mediterranean diet is pop­u­lar] are fairly sim­ple,” Gretel Schueller, man­ag­ing edi­tor of health at U.S. News and World Report, told NBC’s Today show. ​“You’re eat­ing deli­cious, whole foods. It’s backed by decades of research show­ing its health ben­e­fits for a vari­ety of con­di­tions. It’s healthy. It doesn’t cut out any food groups or spe­cific foods. So, it allows it to be sus­tain­able.”
Adhering to the MedDiet can have an over­whelm­ing num­ber of health benefits. Scientific research has repeat­edly demon­strated MedDiet’s abil­ity to con­trol dia­betes, reduce obe­sity lev­els, reduce the risk of heart dis­ease and pre­vent can­cer, to name a few.
“When we talk about the Mediterranean diet, it’s more of a lifestyle and, there­fore, we can talk about how to apply it to a vari­ety of cuisines,” Schueller added. ​“You’re look­ing at foods that are high in fiber and whole grains, and [it] includes a lot of whole foods and mod­er­ate amounts of healthy fats.”
This year, the edi­tors and jour­nal­ists at U.S. News and World Report reduced the num­ber of diets and eat­ing plans avail­able for eval­u­a­tion by a panel of experts. The num­ber of diets eval­u­ated was 24 instead of 40 because of the over­lap between some eat­ing pat­terns and the lack of sup­port for some com­mer­cial diets.
The panel com­prised 33 experts, includ­ing doc­tors, nutri­tion­ists and sci­en­tists from top U.S. research cen­ters and uni­ver­si­ties. They rated each diet in 11 cat­e­gories, includ­ing short- and long-term weight loss, ease of com­pli­ance, safety and nutri­tion.
The Mediterranean topped other dietary habits, such as DASH and the flex­i­tar­ian diet, both of which joined MIND, Weight Watchers and TLC as the sec­ond-best diets over­all.
“This [the Mediterranean] is hands down the best diet,” a pan­elist noted. ​“It encour­ages whole nat­ural foods and has the research to back it up. It is also the most deli­cious.”
Other diets, such as the keto, Atkins and raw food diets, fell out of favor due to their com­plex rules and a lack of sus­tain­abil­ity.
“[Very low car­bo­hy­drate diets] are not sus­tain­able,” said nutri­tion­ist Camila Martin from the University of Wisconsin Health in Madison, who was not a mem­ber of the U.S. News experts panel.
“Carbs are things that peo­ple find bring them a lot of com­fort. They are the base of a lot of tra­di­tional diets and in a lot of dif­fer­ent cul­tures. They’re easy to grow, and [they offer] a very nur­tur­ing feel­ing.”
“What’s nice is Mediterranean is rel­a­tively user friendly,” Martin also said. ​“How it’s struc­tured is sim­i­lar to the [U.S. Department of Agriculture] healthy eat­ing plan. It’s very mod­i­fi­able based off what peo­ple have access to, even with lim­ited resources.”
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