Assessing the impact of the Mediterranean-style diet in preventing non-communicable diseases
This paper explores the macroeconomic impact of the Mediterranean-style diet in reducing the risk of premature death from non-communicable diseases (NCDs). By utilizing an aggregate health production function approach, we investigate whether adopting the Mediterranean-style diet has a mea...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Bologna University press
2025-03-01
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| Series: | New Medit |
| Online Access: | https://newmedit.ciheam.org/2024/12/09/assessing-the-impact-of-the-mediterranean-style-diet-in-preventing-non-communicable-diseases/ |
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| Summary: | This paper explores the macroeconomic impact of the Mediterranean-style diet in
reducing the risk of premature death from non-communicable diseases (NCDs). By
utilizing an aggregate health production function approach, we investigate whether
adopting the Mediterranean-style diet has a measurable country-level protective effect.
Our analysis draws on data from 178 countries and develops two composite indexes to
measure i) adherence to the Mediterranean-style diet and ii) the prevalence of
metabolic syndrome. Our results show a departure from the Mediterranean-style diet in
favor of the Western-style diet across countries in the Mediterranean region during the
last decades. However, we find that adhering to the Mediterranean-style diet
significantly reduces the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (after controlling for major
potential confounding factors, such as health system performance and the
implementation of WHO-recommended NCD prevention measures). The positive
effects of the Mediterranean-style diet are, however, outweighed by the negative ones
of unhealthy dietary patterns. These findings emphasize the need to promote the
Mediterranean-style diet to curb the burden of NCDs. |
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| ISSN: | 2611-1128 |