Mediterranean diet can help you live longer and healthier: Study

To diet or not to diet, that is the question for some. A new study published in the BMJ this week stated  that a Mediterranean diet might help extend your lifespan as the diet rich in olive oil has been associated with longer telomere length-an established marker of slower aging.

The Mediterranean diet has been consistently linked with health benefits, including reduced mortality and reduced risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease.

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital collaborated with Harvard Medical School to go beyond the basic health benefits of weight loss, and they published their study in the British Medical Journal.

They examined a variety of diets from 4,676 healthy middle-aged women, and compared it to the telomeres in their genes. Telomeres are like the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces, but they sit at the end of chromosomes. They stop them from fraying, which is key, considering chromosomes carry important genetic information. As we age, telomeres continue to shorten. Women with a diet most similar to the Mediterranean had longer telomeres.

"To our knowledge, this is the largest population-based study specifically addressing the association between Mediterranean diet adherence and telomere length in healthy, middle-aged women," the authors of the study wrote. "Our results further support the benefits of adherence to the Mediterranean diet for promoting health and longevity."

The study "adds to the evidence" that longer telomeres are linked to healthy lifestyles, writes Peter Nilsson, in an accompanying editorial. "A Mediterranean diet is the cornerstone of dietary advice in cardiovascular disease prevention, and the fact that it also links with a biomarker of slower aging is reassuring." But he also points out the limitations of cross-sectional studies and calls for studies that measure "the attrition or shortening of telomeres over time." He notes that genetic factors might explain "some of the variation in the association between dietary patterns and telomere length."