Quality, but not cost, of diet is associated with 5-year incidence of CVD: the ATTICA study

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the present work was to calculate the current cost of the Mediterranean diet in Greece and to evaluate the role of diet cost in the development of cardiovascular events after a 5-year follow-up. Design: Cross-sectional. Cost of diet was measured in h/week based on common Greek dietary choices, while baseline dietary habits were assessed through a semiquantitative FFQ (Greek-EPIC). The Mediterranean Diet Score (MedDietScore) was applied to assess overall adherence to this pattern using scores of eleven food variables and alcohol, according to the principles of the Mediterranean diet. Setting: Five-year follow-up of the ATTICA study, a nutrition and health survey of a representative, free-living sample of the Greek population resident in the province of Attica, where Athens is a major metropolis.

Perceptions of parents and children, participating in a school‐based feeding programme in disadvantaged areas in Greece: a qualitative study

“…Moreover, parents reported that due to financial constraints, a healthy diet was not always affordable. The cost of the Mediterranean diet is estimated to be rather rational for a middle-income household in Greece (Vlismas et al 2010), which might be not the case for families in low SES areas. Concerning the adherence to the Mediterranean diet, Mediterranean societies are rapidly withdrawing from this eating pattern, mainly due to influence from the Western diet patterns and the increasing prices of some of main Mediterranean diets' food items (Saulle et al 2013).…”

Cost and Cost-Effectiveness of the Mediterranean Diet: Results of a Systematic Review

“…The ATTICA study [32] calculated the cost of the Mediterranean diet in Greece and evaluated the role of diet cost in the development of cardiovascular events after a five-year follow-up. The cost of the diet was measured in €/week based on common Greek dietary choices, while baseline dietary habits were assessed through a semi-quantitative FFQ.…”

“…One of the five articles conducted by Peracino et al [31] in their Appendix simply reported data from the study conducted by Dalziel et al [28], which had already previously been selected in the database search and, therefore, already included in the review, so the article conducted by Peracino et al [31] was excluded by the review. At the end of the selection process, only eight articles met the pre-determined criteria described above [28][29][30][32][33][34][35][36].…”

“…The five remaining selected articles mostly resulted from the string "cost and Mediterranean diet" and all articles dealt with micro-costing analysis, as well as with direct and indirect cost evaluation: two papers used a cross-sectional study [32,36]; another two were cohort surveys [34,35] and one other, a narrative review [33]. Lopez et al [35] examined the costs of observed dietary patterns in a Mediterranean Spanish cohort evaluated by a food frequency questionnaire.…”

“…Furthermore, both dietary patterns were inversely associated with BMI and obesity after controlling for several confounders. In the other cross-sectional study, Vlismas et al [32] calculated the current cost of the Mediterranean diet in Greece, measured on common Greek dietary choices through a semi-quantitative FFQ, and evaluated the role of diet cost in the development of cardiovascular events after a five-year follow-up. The Mediterranean Diet Score (MedDietScore) was applied to assess overall adherence to this pattern using scores of eleven food variables and alcohol, according to the principles of the Mediterranean diet.…”