Mediterranean Lifestyle Correlates with Low Risk of Depression

Do you need yet another reason to adopt the Mediterranean lifestyle? Listen to this: the traditional Mediterranean diet may reduce your risk of depression. Just considering the components of the healthy Mediterranean diet lifts my spirits! It also makes my mouth water – lol.

The Mediterranean way of eating (and its derivativem, the Sonoma Diet, for those who don’t live on the sunny shores of the Mediterranean) is rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts and whole grains accompanied by small amounts of monounsaturated fats like olive oil (rather than the saturated fats found in dairy products and meats) as well as fish rather than meat (to meet the body's need for protein).

The study, carried out by researchers at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Pamplona Spain, followed the dietary habits of 10,000+ healthy adults for almost four and a half years. The results were published in the October 2009 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Those subjects who most closely followed the Mediterranean diet were more than 30% less likely to develop depression than those who didn't. Read that again: a 30% lower risk of depression!

Come back tomorrow to learn more.

Tags: Mediterranean lifestyle, Mediterranean diet, health-giving diet, Sonoma lifestyle, Sonoma diet , reduced risk of depression, depression research