The Mediterranean diet enriched with virgin olive oil or nuts is capable of reversing arteriosclerosis in the carotid arteries in a single year, according to a study carried out at the University of Navarra.
Miguel Ángel Martínez-González, director of the project and Professor of Preventive Medicine at the Spanish institution, points out that "a change in the dietary pattern is able to achieve in a single year results that are not reached with drugs that are prescribed nor even in two years of treatment".
The researchers, led by Ana Sánchez-Tainta, a specialist in Human Nutrition and Dietetics at the same university, followed 187 volunteers over 55 years old with high cardiovascular risk. They were divided into three groups at random: two followed the Mediterranean diet (one consumed 15 liters of virgin olive oil every three months and the other 30 grams of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts during the same period); The third only followed a low-fat diet.
All participants were measured by ultrasound thickness of the intima-media layer of the carotid artery, both at the beginning of the study and at the end of one year. The result was that in the first two groups who had more thickened that layer (due to atherosclerosis) significantly improved and there was a regression of the lesions.
The final results will be known until 2012 with a clinical follow-up of 7,447 participants, the largest clinical study to date in Spain, which began in 2003 with the participation of 19 more research centers.
