Unique Greek Mediterranean Diets and Other Popular Weight Loss Diet Plans

The Greek Mediterranean Diet offers a healthy, tasty, aromatic array of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, wild greens, fish, olive oil, and red wine while sharply reducing intake of milk products, meat, processed foods, sweets, and caffeine. The GMD helps prevent cardiovascular disorders, reduce the incidence of cancer and diabetes, and–it appears–curb neurodegenerative processes. It is strange, therefore, that, in spite of the pressing need to confront the global obesity epidemic, and the GMD has received relatively little attention in regard to its potential for weight loss.

One reason: the centrality of olive oil in the GMD seems flagrantly at odds with the need to reduce body fat. Another reason: the GMD threatens the profits of the dairy and meat industries, the processed food industry, the beverage industry (except for red wine growers), pharmaceutical companies, and commercial dieting companies. So it is often ignored in discussions of approaches to weight loss. A third reason: the GMD is not really a diet at all in the sense of a way of reducing energy intake in order to reduce weight. Nonetheless, the GMD can perform splendidly at the very task that is the downfall of other diets: it possesses proven effectiveness as a way of maintaining weight.

In almost every clinical trial of medical and commercial diets, the loss of some 2-14 kg over the first 6-12 months gradually gives way to regaining weight, so that after five years the dieter is often no better off than at the outset. In contrast, the palatability of the GMD, its satiety-inducing ingredients, its natural appeal, its extensive network of suppliers and recipes, and its freedom from the calorie counting, weight worrying, extra expenses, and counseling typical of other diets make it much easier to pursue over the long term.

Scientific Evidence

We have solid evidence for the effectiveness of the GMD in weight maintenance. For instance, high adherence to a GMD was associated with lower risk of obesity over 3.3 years in a study of 17,238 women and 10,589 men from the Spanish cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) (Giugliano D and Esposito K Curr Opin Lipidol 2008). In a recent three-pronged Israeli study (Shai I et al. NEJM 2008), a loosely defined Greek Mediterranean Diet maintained weight loss of about 4.4 kg from Months 5 through 24 of a trial, whereas a low-fat diet group regained about 25% of weight lost in the first 5 months. The Atkins Diet (low carbohydrates) group actually outperformed the GMD group, losing 4.7 kg. But it had initially lost more, and then regained the lost weight. A 2001 study (McManus K et al., Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord) and other clinical trials found the same pattern of weight maintenance with the GMD.

Most people naturally prefer the GMD because it provides normal nutrition instead of reducing caloric intake (though that is also an option). In contrast, low-fat diets tend to fare relatively poorly in terms of palatability and the induction of satiety, so dieters often deviate from their prescriptions or abandon them entirely over time. Clearly, the moderate level of fat provided by olive oil in the GMD appeals to many eaters. Olive oil’s gastronomic qualities enhance the taste of other components of the GMD as well. In addition, there is intriguing evidence that moderate red wine consumption prevents body weight gain, at least in rats (Vadillo Bargallo et al. J Nutr Biochem 2006). Of course, olive oil and red wine in the GMD also convey other health benefits not available in diets that radically reduce fat and eliminate alcohol.

One conclusion could be that dieters who lose weight from any other diet should, as their weight loss slows down, switch over to the GMD to maintain the weight reduction.

Evidence regarding weight loss with the GMD is more fragmentary. It is hard to define a single standard GMD; every study uses a different version. Also, the GMD blends into the even less well-defined category of a moderate-fat diet. A recent Iranian study (Azadbakht L et al. Br J Nutr 2007), for instance, found that over 7 months a moderate-fat diet (like the GMD) and a low-fat one performed equally well, but by 14 months the low-fat group had regained all but 1.1 kg whereas the moderate-fat group kept its loss at 5.0 kg. But the study did not use olive oil, red wine, or other components of the GMD. An Italian pilot study (De Lorenzo A et al. Diab Nutr Metab 2001) of a low-calorie, rather well-defined GMD in 19 obese women found that they lost 6.6 kg on average over two months. So a low-calorie GMD seems to work quite well for losing weight in the short run, and then it can be adjusted to normal GMD intake for the long run. Of course, this conclusion requires large, high-quality trials to establish firmly.

A pilot study of a high-protein variant of the GMD termed the Spanish Ketogenic Greek Mediterranean Diet, relying heavily on fish and olive oil, reportedly led to an average 14 kg weight loss in obese subjects over 12 weeks (Perez-Guisado J et al. Nutr J 2008). Experimental approaches of this kind require further investigation and may lead to superior outcomes.