TUESDAY, Aug. 29, 2023 (HealthDay News) — For middle-aged and older adults, higher adherence to the Mediterranean lifestyle is associated with lower all-cause and cancer mortality, according to a study published online Aug. 16 in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Javier Maroto-Rodriguez, from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and colleagues examined the association between the Mediterranean lifestyle and all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality among 110,799 individuals aged 40 to 75 years from the U.K. Biobank cohort. Mediterranean lifestyle was assessed at baseline using the Mediterranean Lifestyle (MEDLIFE) index and included three groups: Mediterranean food consumption, Mediterranean dietary habits, and physical activity, rest, social habits, and conviviality.

The researchers identified 4,247 total deaths, 2,401 cancer deaths, and 731 CVD deaths during a median follow-up of 9.4 years. For all-cause mortality, increasing quartiles of the MEDLIFE index had hazard ratios of 0.89, 0.81, and 0.71, respectively, compared with the first quartile. The quartiles had hazard ratios of 0.90, 0.83, and 0.72 for cancer mortality. Independent associations were seen for all MEDLIFE index blocks with a lower risk for all-cause and cancer death; physical activity, rest, social habits, and conviviality were linked to lower CVD mortality.

“This study suggests that it’s possible for non-Mediterranean populations to adopt the Mediterranean diet using locally available products and to adopt the overall Mediterranean lifestyle within their own cultural contexts,” coauthor Mercedes Sotos Prieto, Ph.D., also from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, said in a statement.

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