The closer you are to a Mediterranean approach, the longer and healthier your life (called the Healthy Life Expectancy Index, HALE).

What I love about this research isn’t just that it confirms what we already know, but that it shows that it’s the entire pattern that matters.

Nutrition is important of course, but the impact of eating a Mediterranean diet gets better when it’s …

* combined with activity, and then 
* combined with mindfulness, and then
* combined with social interaction.

And the reason the phrase “closer adherence” to a Mediterranean lifestyle matters is because it means you don’t have to “get it perfect”, by living the Mediterranean lifestyle to the Nth degree.

Just do what you can for now. Get close. Because the health benefits start even when you aren’t all the way there just yet.

But when you are ready to add more of this lifestyle, you add more health benefits too.

In other words, this way of living grows with you.

“Association between the Mediterranean Diet Score and Healthy Life Expectancy”
https://lnkd.in/gPfqzHV7