Another Reason To Enjoy The Mediterranean Diet!

The Mediterranean Diet is considered by many to be the current “gold standard” of healthy eating, and with good reason. With 10,000+ studies underpinning it and counting, it has a pretty hefty weight of evidence.

Wondering what the Mediterranean Diet consists of? We outlined it in a previous main feature, so here it is for your convenience:

The Mediterranean Diet: What Is It Good For? ← also covers which foods actually go into it, and which don’t 😎

To get us started today, we’ll quickly drop some links to a few of those Mediterranean Diet studies from the top:

• Definition of the Mediterranean Diet; a Literature Review
• Mediterranean Diet In Healthy Aging
• Cancer and Mediterranean Diet: A Review
• Impact of Mediterranean Diet on Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases and Longevity
• Mediterranean diet and cardiovascular disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies
• Adherence to Mediterranean diet and health status: meta-analysis

The short version is: it glows, in a good way.

So… What’s new?

Give yourself a Mediterranean mitochondrial boost

Researchers (Dr. Vittoria Cammisotto et al.) found that eating in a manner consistent with the Mediterranean diet is associated with increased levels of mitochondrial microproteins (namely: humanin, and small human mitochondrial ORF over serine tRNA, known as “SHMOOSE” to its friends) linked to healthier aging.

Specifically, these microproteins go well above and beyond the job of being “mere” nutrients, and rather act directly as molecular messengers translating diet into cellular function, which means that they influence aging, cardiovascular health, and brain health.

Which really is quite a reminder that at the end of the day, our body is one big organism of countless tiny parts that just do what they’re told.

As for these molecular messengers specifically:

• Humanin is associated with improved insulin sensitivity, cardiovascular protection, longevity, and preservation of cognitive function.
• SHMOOSE appears to protect brain cells in general, although certain genetic variants affect Alzheimer’s disease risk too.
• Both sets of higher microprotein levels were associated with lower oxidative stress markers, which is invariably good news, especially vs chronic diseases.

The study even highlighted which components of the Mediterranean diet were responsible for which benefits:

• Humanin: olive oil, fish, and legumes
• SMOOSE: olive oil and lower refined carbohydrate

So, olive oil scores twice! And by a completely different mechanism to that which we described in How Olives Can Help Protect Your Brain!

Before you go shopping though, do first swing by: Type Of Olive Oil Does Matter, For Brain & Gut Health!

And to read this study in full, you can find it here: Mediterranean diet adherence is associated with mitochondrial microproteins Humanin and SHMOOSE; potential role of the Humanin–Nox2 interaction in cardioprotection

Want to learn more?

You have options:

• Want to make it even better? See: Better Than The Mediterranean?
• Want to do it with much less effort? See: Mediterranean Diet… In A Pill?
• Want to expand your culinary repertoire? See: More Mediterranean – by American’s Test Kitchen

Enjoy!