TABLE 1.

Recent observational studies on adherence to the Mediterranean diet and cardiovascular disease¹

Study	Country	Sample size	Outcome	Events	Comment
Dilis et al., 2012 (12)	Greece	23,929	CHD incidence and death from CHD	636 CHD events and 240 CHD deaths	There was a stronger inverse association for mortality than for incidence.
Tognon et al., 2012 (13)	Sweden	77,151	CVD death	680 deaths	The inverse association was only significant among women. Effect of the dietary pattern (only present among women) was smaller than in studies conducted in Mediterranean countries.
Gardener et al., 2011 (14)	United States	2568	Stroke, myocardial infarction, and CVD death	518 events	In a multiethnic population, a dietary pattern resembling the Mediterranean diet was protective against the combined outcome of ischemic stroke, myocardial infarction, and vascular death.
Misirli et al., 2012 (15)	Greece	23,601	Stroke	395 incident cases and 196 stroke deaths	Inverse trends were stronger with respect to ischemic rather than hemorrhagic stroke.
Hoevenaar-Blom et al., 2012 (16)	The Netherlands	40,011	Fatal and nonfatal CVD events	4881 events, including 487 CVD deaths	There were significant inverse linear associations for fatal CVD, total CVD, myocardial infarction, and stroke.
Menotti et al., 2012 (17)	Italy	1139	CHD death	162 CHD deaths	There was an inverse association between an index of adequacy to the Mediterranean diet and total mortality in a male cohort.
Tognon et al., 2013 (18)	Denmark	1849	Fatal and nonfatal CVD events	755 CVD events and 223 CVD deaths	Higher adherence to a Mediterranean dietary score was inversely associated with CVD and myocardial infarction but not with stroke.

¹Description of observational studies recently published but not included in the 2010 meta-analysis by Sofi et al. (8). CHD, coronary heart disease; CVD, cardiovascular disease.