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Adherence to the Mediterranean diet and quality of life in the SUN Project

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 66, page 975 (2012)Cite this article

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Sanchez et al.1 utilized data from the large multi-purpose SUN cohort to examine the association between Mediterranean diet and mental and physical quality of life. The authors found that Mediterranean diet is an important factor associated with health-related quality of life.

Although the results are consistent with the scientific literature on the health benefits associated with the Mediterranean diet,2 it is not clear that the method of assigning diet score is valid for this study. To determine diet score, the investigators categorized intake of each component of the Mediterranean diet using a binary variable (0 for intake below median and 1 for intake above median) and summed the binary variables. This method could have led to a misrepresentation of the magnitude of difference in intake between individuals with different diet scores.

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References

  1. Sanchez PH, Ruano C, de Irala J, Ruiz-Canela M, Martınez-Gonzalez MA, Sanchez-Villegas A . Adherence to the Medierranean diet and quality of life in the SUN Project. Eur J Clin Nutr 2012; 66: 360–368.

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  2. Sofi F, Cesari F, Abbate R, Gensini GF, Casini A . Adherence to Mediterranean diet and health status: a meta-analysis. BMJ 2008; 337: a1344.

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  3. Trichopoulou A, Costacou T, Bamia C, Trichopoulos D . Adherence to Mediterranean diet and survival in a Greek population. N Engl J Med 2003; 348: 2599–2608.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    S Kepler

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  1. S Kepler
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Correspondence to S Kepler.

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Kepler, S. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet and quality of life in the SUN Project. Eur J Clin Nutr 66, 975 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2012.74

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