People who follow a western diet are four times more likely to develop COPD...

At Ukmedix News we always report the good news about the Mediterranean diet. The reason we love the Mediterranean diet is because we think it is one of the very practical and realistic diets to follow. The Mediterranean diet involves a great variety of food that is tasty and wholesome and does not cut out too many things; in fact we like to call it the Mediterranean lifestyle as the word diet can conjure up images of abstinence and denial.

Recent research done in France has shown that a diet that includes all the components of a Mediterranean lifestyle can help you to reduce the chances of suffering from a number of lung illnesses such as bronchitis and emphysema. For example the chances of getting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD for short is reduced by nearly 50 percent if a person eats a diet which is minimal in saturated fats, which has many dairy products and a good dose of fibre.

You would not normally think that what you eat would have a big affect on your lungs but this research shows that the saying “you are what you eat” is really true and that your diet can have an affect on all aspects of your health. Interestingly the number of people suffering from this chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is rising each and every year almost at the same rate as the rise in obesity is recorded. The researchers also noted that people who follow a western diet are four times more likely to develop COPD when compared to those who consume a Mediterranean diet.

Dr Varraso from the Harvard School of Public Health facilitated this research over twelve years in France by looking at over 40,000 French men and questioning them about their diets. Doctor Varraso noted in that people who ate foods which were processed and manufactured tended to have a higher risk of COPD when compared to those people who tended to eat natural foods which especially included a lot of fruit and vegetables.

Readers of this article now have yet another incentive to make sure that they eat well and that they stay away from food which can be bad for their health.