An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but the Mediterranean diet may also do the exact same thing.
A groundbreaking 13-year study has uncovered that the diet — heavy on fish, olive oil, and vegetables, — can help cancer survivors live longer.
Survivors who started to follow the diet at the conclusion of their treatment had a 32% lower chance of a premature death.
They also had a 60% drop in the the specific risk of heart-related mortality following treatment.
Researchers in Italy uncovered their findings after studying 800 cancer survivors in the years after they received a clean bill of health. They kept track of their dietary habits over a 13-year span, starting in the late 2000s.
As the Mediterranean diet puts a strong focus on other healthy foods like fruits, clean protein, and olive oil, researcher Chiara Tonelli believes that their high sources of antioxidants play a role in longevity ” advantage.”
Additionally, the team found a connection between the bases of heart disease and cancer.
“That different chronic diseases, such as tumors and heart diseases, actually share the same molecular mechanisms,” researcher Maria Benedetta Donati stated, per U.S. News & World Report.
“This is known in the [medical] literature as ‘common soil’, namely a common ground from which these two groups of disorders originate,” she added.
Now, the team wants to look to further into specific foods from the Mediterranean diet to tease out more detailed information.
Meanwhile, unrelated research has shown that other foods pose a cancer risk.
Numerous types of meat including red, fried foods, and alcohol have been associated with an increase risk of cancer.
