Assessing the impact of the Mediterranean-style diet in preventing non-communicable diseases

• Fabrizio Ferretti ^[1] ; Giulio Malorgio ^[3] ; Roberto CAPONE ^[2]
  1. [1] University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

     University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

     Módena, Italia

     
  2. [2] University of Bologna

     University of Bologna

     Bolonia, Italia

     
  3. [3] Agricultural Center of Advanced Mediterranean Studies (CIHEAM), France

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• Localización: New medit: Mediterranean journal of economics, agriculture and environment = Revue méditerranéenne d'economie, agriculture et environment, ISSN 1594-5685, Vol. 24, Nº. 1, 2025, págs. 3-20
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.30682/nm2501a
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• Resumen

  • 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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