The Mediterranean dietTrusted Source is an umbrella term referring to diets based on the historic eating habits of people who live around the Mediterranean Sea.

According to the American Heart AssociationTrusted Source, which recommends this type of diet for cardiovascular health, its key features are:

• high intake of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, and legumes
• low-fat or fat-free dairy products, fish, poultry, non-tropical vegetable oils, and nuts
• limited added sugars, sugary beverages, sodium, highly processed foods, refined carbohydrates, saturated fats, and fatty or processed meats.

The Harvard School of Public Health adds to these recommendations, emphasizing the importance of healthy fats — olive oil, avocados, nuts, and oily fish.

It advises that people should eat red meat only occasionally, but get their protein from fish or seafood at least twice a week and eat small quantities of poultry, eggs, and dairy most days.

Although water should be a person’s main drink, people may also drink one or two small glasses of red wine each day, as per the traditional Mediterranean diet.

Researchers add, however, that a healthy diet should also be paired up with some form of enjoyable physical activity every day.

Dr. Scott Kaiser, a geriatrician, and director of Geriatric Cognitive Health for the Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, noted:

“Research supports the benefits of adopting healthy lifestyle habits and indicates the critical importance this can play in shaping our future individual and collective health. […] Start with including lots of fresh vegetables — especially green leafy vegetables — and then enjoy fresh fruits— like berries — and other antioxidant-rich foods, along with fish, olive oil, and other foods rich in brain-healthy omega-3s.”

Mediterranean diets have long been associated with benefits to cardiovascular health. In the mid-20th century, the Seven Countries study showed that dietary patterns in the Mediterranean and in Japan in the 1960s were associated with low rates of coronary heart disease and all-cause mortality.

Since then, research has shown that this type of diet not only benefits cardiovascular health, but it also reduces the risk of many other health conditions.

And recently, evidence has been increasing for the wide-ranging health benefits of following a Mediterranean diet. But what makes Mediterranean diets so healthy, exactly?

“The Mediterranean diet is characterized by high fruit and vegetables, high fiber, high levels of ‘good fats,’ moderate intakes of fish and meat, low amounts of high processed foods and sugary treat foods,” noted Dr. Eamon Laird, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College, Dublin, in Ireland.

“These food components give high amounts of fiber, good fats, antioxidants, polyphenols, vitamins and minerals — choline, vitamin C, potassium, B-vitamins, vitamin D from fish, etc. — [and] proteins which give health benefits throughout a large number of organ and tissue systems,” he explained.