In a new study, researchers found the Mediterranean diet could boost endurance exercise after just a few days.
The Mediterranean diet is high in whole fruits, vegetables, nuts, olive oil, and whole grains.
It is low in red meats, processed meats, trans and saturated fats, dairy, and refined sugars. It also includes moderate drinking of alcohol, preferably during meals.
The research was conducted by Researchers at Saint Louis University.
Previous studies have shown that the Mediterranean diet has numerous health benefits and is linked to lower risk of cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.
The diet can help people live a healthy, long life.
One study tested more than 5,000 people over 65 years of age and showed that eating the Mediterranean diet is associated with a 25% reduction of all-cause mortality in older people.
In the current study, the team hypothesized that the Mediterranean diet’s anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects may help improve exercise performance.
Previous research has shown that many individual nutrients in the Mediterranean diet are found can improve exercise performance just within a few days.
The team tested how a Western diet and the Mediterranean diet could influence exercise performance differently in seven women and four men.
The people ran five kilometers on a treadmill on two occasions. One was after four days on a Mediterranean diet and another was occasion after four days on a Western diet.
Between the two sessions, there were 16 days.
The Western diet is low in fruit, vegetables, and unrefined oils. It is high in trans and saturated fats, dairy, refined sugars, highly processed vegetable oils, salt, and processed foods.
They found people who ran 5,000 meters were 6% faster after eating a Mediterranean diet than after eating a Western diet.
But there is no difference between the two diets in aerobic exercise performance.
in addition, the two groups had similar heart rates and ratings of perceived exertion.
The findings suggest that a diet known to be good for health can also be good for exercise performance.
The finding could motive athletes and other exercise enthusiasts replace unhealthy diets with healthier ones, such as the Mediterranean diet.
One author of the study is Edward Weiss, Ph.D., professor of nutrition and dietetics at SLU.
The study is published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.
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