It’s the beginning of January, aka diet season, and the rankings are in: U.S. News & World Report just released its top diets for 2022. The winner? (Drumroll, please.) Out of 40 diets, the Mediterranean diet is No. 1 for the fourth year in a row. Meanwhile, other popular diets, including the ketogenic diet (“keto”), modified keto, and the diet, landed toward the bottom of the Best Diets Overall list, at Nos. 37 (a tie), and 39, respectively.
Best Diets of 2022 List Compares With 2021
As in the three previous years, in 2022 the Mediterranean diet beat out the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet on the overall list. (In 2018, the two tied for the top slot.) Here’s why the panel of nutritionists, dietary consultants, and physicians awarded the Mediterranean diet honors: It gets points (an overall score of 4.2 out of 5) for its health benefits. Indeed, the Mediterranean diet also won in other categories, including Best Plant-Based Diets, Best Diabetes Diets, Best Heart-Healthy Diets tied with the diet Best Diets for Healthy Eating, and Easiest Diets to Follow.
Mediterranean Diet, DASH Diet, and Flexitarian Diets Remain the Best Diets of 2022
All three diets are also highly recommended by doctors because of their known health benefits. “The Mediterranean eating plan doesn’t have a set calorie range or portion guidelines, which is why it can fit almost anyone’s needs. Eating in this way may promote weight loss, but the main goal of this eating style is the health benefits it can offer, such as improvements in cardiovascular health,” says Erin Palinski-Wade, RD, CDCES, the author of Belly Fat Diet for Dummies.
For instance, the Mediterranean diet beat low-fat diets for weight loss after one year and improved measures of heart health, according to a study published in April 2016 in the American Journal of Medicine. Switching from an omnivore diet to a plant-based diet was found to help the majority of people lose weight, possibly because of the boost in fiber intake, as well as trading animal proteins for more plant proteins, per a systematic review published in September 2020 in Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy.
In a study published in December 2018 in JAMA Network Open of nearly 26,000 women, those who followed the Mediterranean diet closely had up to a 28 percent lower risk of heart disease compared with those who didn’t follow the diet, likely because the diet helped lower inflammation, improve insulin function, and reduce body mass index (BMI). A large-scale review published in February 2019 in the journal Circulation Research called the evidence for the Mediterranean diet's ability to decrease risk of heart disease and stroke “large, strong, and consistent.”
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) funded three studies examining the health benefits of DASH, and found that it can lower blood pressure and LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol levels, as well as help people lose weight, when compared with diets such as the standard American diet (SAD). The SAD is high in salt, added sugar, and saturated fat, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion notes. What’s more, a study published in September 2018 in the journal Medicine analyzed 12 studies of more than a half million participants. Researchers concluded that people who followed the DASH diet closely had a 12 percent lower risk of developing a stroke compared with those who were more lax in their diet.
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