Dolors Corella participates in a study in which the American Heart Association endorses 14 points of the Mediterranean diet

“The PREDIMED studies will be key to advancing personalised medicine”, said Dolors Corella, King James I Award for Biomedical Research (2018) and expert in the Mediterranean diet. “Knowing the global pattern of Mediterranean diet from this validated and simple questionnaire, allows us to better assess an integrated profile of healthy diet in each person. In addition, the study of genetic susceptibility to different cardiometabolic diseases we are performing in the UV provides us with new knowledge about gene-diet modulations to be able to apply them to a more personalised nutrition”, pointed out the Valencian researcher. The UV and professor group Carolina Ortega (biochemistry) and José V. Sorlí, a specialist in family and community medicine, also took part in the UV group.

Miguel A. Martínez-González, professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Navarra, points out that the AHA’s scientific statement highlights the fundamental need to have nutritional assessment tools in clinical care, to prevent related chronic diseases with diet, especially cardiovascular diseases, which are the main cause of death in the world.

The statement argues that “the widespread use of electronic health records opens up enormous opportunities to record eating habits and provide evidence-based nutritional advice. There is a lot of room for improvement and the brief rapid assessment tools of the eating pattern facilitate these tips”.

The document provides solid foundations to adopt rapid nutritional screening tools, both in primary care and in specialised care, with a valid and feasible method in the clinical setting. Among the few short tools available that have already demonstrated high validity, the AHA highlights the great advantages of the 14-point scale of adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MEDAS), designed in the PREDIMED study, carried out in 11 centres throughout Spain.

The six CIBEROBN researchers that makeup the PREDIMED Steering Committee have expressed their joy and satisfaction at the enormous impact of the continued effort of all PREDIMED members after almost two decades of work.

As stated by MontseFitó, from the IMIM (Hospital del Mar Institute of Medical research), “thanks to PREDIMED, the Mediterranean diet has the best guarantees of efficacy in cardiometabolic prevention and can be the great response of science to the serious consequences of obesity”.

Miguel A. Martínez-González, from the University of Navarra and coordinator of the PREDIMED network during 2006-2013, adds that “the PREDIMED group has already produced more than 300 scientific publications, available, like this scale, at www.predimed.es, and also several informative books that are friendly to read, where it is clearly explained how each citizen can apply and benefit from these results and can personally improve those 14 points of the Mediterranean diet”.

For his part, Ramón Estruch, from the Clinical Hospital of Barcelona, director and promoter of the PREDIMED trial, indicates that “not surprisingly the Mediterranean diet was chosen in 2021 as the best diet in the world –for the fourth consecutive year–, according to the U.S. News and World Report ranking. Added to this is the excellence attributed to our scale in this important scientific statement from the AHA”.

Emilio Ros, from the same hospital, explains that “this 14-point MEDAS scale was the decisive instrument for our team of nutritionists to change the global eating pattern in thousands of participants and thus obtain a relative reduction of 30% in major cardiovascular events. These 14 points have already been validated in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Greece, Brazil, Italy, Macedonia, Bulgaria and other countries”.

The European Heart Journal published in 2020 an important article on this 14-point Mediterranean diet scale. It was found that a series of molecules measured in blood characterised the follow-up of the Mediterranean diet and predicted a lower risk of heart attack or suffering a stroke. It is an absolute novelty in nutrition, which could also be replicated in the USA.

PREDIMED has placed Spanish research at the forefront of the world, as it has become one of the most influential studies in nutrition globally. Jordi Salas, from the RoviraiVirgili University concludes that “it represents the beginning of an international benchmark in nutritional intervention studies in primary prevention”.

Questions

The 14 PREDIMED points are made up of 14 simple answer questions – “yes” or “no” –, and allow us totake charge of the quality of the whole food pattern. Some of the questions are “Do you use olive oil as the main cooking fat?”, “How many servings of vegetables do you consume per day?”, “How many pieces of fruit do you eat per day?”, “How many carbonated and / or sugary drinks (soda, cola, tonic, bitters or similar) do you consume per day?” or “How many servings of nuts do you consume per week?”, among others.