Mediterranean Diet Improves Health in Chile

Mediterranean Diet Improves Health is my review of a study of healthier eating in Chile[1]. Specifically, I’m using this report to introduce some principles of Mediterranean Diet. Later I will expand on those principles in detail. Also, I will expand on how Mediterranean lifestyle can improve specific illnesses.

Mediterranean Diet Improves Health Audience

I wrote Mediterranean Diet Improves Health for anyone who wants to use healthier eating to fight a disease. In particular, this study shows improvements in obesity and Metabolic Syndrome from healthier eating. However, it also links to other diseases that have been improved by adopting Mediterranean eating plans.

Mediterranean Diet Improves Health Introduction

Firstly, it’s good to be aware of what we mean by Mediterranean Diet. Because it isn’t really a diet at all. Instead, it’s an approach to living that uses traditional ways of life to influence how we should live today. So it stands on a foundation of good levels of activity each day. Then we build healthy eating patterns that reflect a good mix of high-quality, mainly local, foods and beverages.

Local Foods Build Mediterranean Eating Patterns

Interestingly, the report describes Chile as one of the world’s five Mediterranean climate areas. So, Mediterranean diets will have regional variations between and within:

  • California and Northern Baja California
  • Central Chile
  • Mediterranean Basin
  • Western Cape Region of South Africa
  • Southwestern and South Australia

Five Mediterranean Climate Area Maps

Five Mediterranean Climate Areas[2]


So, in this report, we see that Chile is one example of localized Mediterranean Diet.

We propose the Mediterranean diet as a particularly fitting model for the analysis of Chilean diet quality because Central Chile, also known as the country’s agricultural heartland, represents one of the world’s five Mediterranean ecosystems. In addition, many traditional Chilean dishes, such as charquicán, porotos granados, caldillo de congrio, and pebre, incorporate ingredients and cooking techniques commonly used in a Mediterranean diet.

Mediterranean Diet Improves Disease

This report focuses on improving Overweight, Obesity, and Metabolic Syndrome. Also, it includes references to using Mediterranean eating patterns to improve many other illnesses. So, for the purposes of this review, I will give a simple overview of each disease. Later, I will publish more about the investigations into those diseases, and link them from the disease summary.

If you want an email when I publish these, please subscribe:


Subscribe to Free Foodary Nexus

Subscription is free, and your email address is safe - I will never share it with anyone else. I use Gumroad to provide this service, as described at the Foodary Nexus Newsletter Service.


Since this report looks at a group of related diseases, it provides a wealth of general indications linking Mediterranean Diet with those diseases. But individuals will rarely complain of suffering Metabolic Syndrome. So I prefer to focus on specific diseases. Because this allows people to get good information on how Mediterranean diet can help their personal diagnosis.

Mediterranean Diet Improves Obesity/Overweight

Due to the nature of this study, it does not identify specific weight loss objectives that might be met with Mediterranean Diet. Also, the report is a statistical analysis of risk, rather than a case-controlled study of individual disease sufferers. Because it uses a Mediterranean Diet Scoring system to assess historical eating patterns. Yet, it is encouraging seeing:

a consistent relationship between adherence to a Mediterranean style diet and decreased prevalence of Overweight/Obesity, abdominal obesity, and Metabolic Syndrome. Our results not only corroborate findings from other regions, but also demonstrate that a Mediterranean diet is possible in Chile and, as in other countries, is associated with decreased risk of chronic disease conditions.

Furthermore, there is a significant improvement in the risk of disease from only a small improvement in Mediterranean Diet Score.

Mediterranean Diet Improves Other Diseases

Here is the list of other diseases that can be improved by adopting Mediterranean style eating habits:

  • Cardiovascular Disease.
  • Diabetes.
  • High Triglycerides.
  • Hypertension (High Blood Pressure).
  • Inflammatory Diseases.
  • Low HDL (“good”) cholesterol.

Please note that this list shows diseases that are identified in the Chilean report. However, I will add more diseases as we discuss them in the healthy eating forum. Then, as I complete each disease review, I will link them to the list of diseases.

Mediterranean Diet Improves Your Health

Most of the Mediterranean Diet studies show that health improves as people move from a typical Western Diet to Mediterranean eating style. Also, it is easier to change habits if we gradually introduce new habits rather than sudden total change[3]. So if you introduce healthier lifestyle changes gradually, you get immediate improvement. Then your health continues to improve as you move up the Mediterranean Diet scoring scale.

Leave Mediterranean Diet Improves Health to read more Foodary Nutrition Blog articles.


Please remember: to find more related pages that are relevant to you, use the search box near the top of every page.

Common Terms: ,

Other posts that include these terms:

Mediterranean Diet Improves Health References

  1. Echeverría, Guadalupe, et al. “Inverse Associations between a Locally Validated Mediterranean Diet Index, Overweight/Obesity, and Metabolic Syndrome in Chilean Adults.” Nutrients 9.8 (2017): 862. Mediterranean Diet in Chile PDF.
  2. Klausmeyer, Kirk R., and M. Rebecca Shaw. “Climate change, habitat loss, protected areas and the climate adaptation potential of species in Mediterranean ecosystems worldwide.” PloS one 4, no. 7 (2009): e6392.
  3. Mastellos, Nikolaos, Laura H. Gunn, Lambert M. Felix, Josip Car, and Azeem Majeed. “Transtheoretical model stages of change for dietary and physical exercise modification in weight loss management for overweight and obese adults.” The Cochrane Library (2014).

Comments are closed.