Nutty researchers push benefits of Mediterranean diet Every January, it's the same thing: it seems everyone adopts some screwy fad diet or another to try and atone for all of their eating indiscretions. And now a new study is trying to re-start the craze for the Mediterranean Diet. Spanish researchers claim that this diet - along with once-a-day servings of mixed nuts - can help keep metabolic syndrome in check. (Metabolic syndrome is a conglomerate of health-threatening issues such as elevated glucose levels, high blood pressure, obesity, and high cholesterol.) The researchers tracked more than 1,200 people between the ages of 55 and 80 who were considered to be at high risk for heart diseases associated with metabolic syndrome. The people were divided into three groups, one of which was placed on the Mediterranean diet and the nuts, which consisted of a liter of olive oil per week, along with 30 grams of mixed nuts per day. At the end of one year, fewer people on the Mediterranean/nut plan had high triglycerides, high blood pressure, or large waist circumferences. The Mediterranean Diet consists of lots of bread, beans, and seeds (great fare for your birds). But it severely restricts fat, instructing followers to eat less than 25 percent fat, avoid saturated fat and animal fat. Some think that Mediterranean diet is a good diet simply because it includes a lot of olive oil. But a liter a week of olive oil? It's not a diet that I could recommend as healthy or, for that matter, realistic. Chicken and fish are allowed in moderate amounts only. And as far as red meat? Forget it - the Mediterranean diet limits that to just a few times a month. Eggs? A max of four per week - but zero is the preferred amount. Who eats like that? All the olive oil in the world, as good as it is for your health, can't replace the nutritional benefits of vital animal protein and animal fat in copious quantities. No wonder waist circumference of those in the study dropped! I bet their energy level plummeted, too, because of their lack of protein. Could higher taxes actually lower your chance of dying? The government sure would like you to think so. They're actually claiming that raising the state tax on alcohol could actually prompt a decline in the number of people who die from alcohol-related diseases like cirrhosis and cancer. This "research" is based on alcohol tax hikes in Alaska in 1983 and 2002. After taxes went up on wine, beer, and liquor in 1983, the study claims there were 29 percent fewer deaths linked to alcohol-related disease. After the taxes were raised again in 2002, there was a more modest decline of 11 percent. So, because alcohol cost more, people drank less? I doubt it. There are so many other factors this study failed to consider: how many of the people that died had pre-existing diseases before the taxes went up? Did they all really die of actual alcohol-linked ailments? After all, the researchers included breast cancer as one of the "alcohol-related" diseases that declined - that seems a bit of a stretch to me. Once again: shoddy research is being used to back up what will be a popular conclusion. Surely, state governments will seize upon the "results" of this silly study so they can claim that their next tax hike is being done for the "public good." | 
