New and traditional foods in a modernized Mediterranean diet model.

Mediterranean diet is definitely one of the healthiest dietary models. Next questions are: is the traditional Mediterranean diet adapted to the modern environmental and existential conditions? Could and/or should it be "modernized" to adapt to the various geographical, environmental, ethnic, and religious characteristics? If "modernization" is required, which traditional Mediterranean foods should be imperatively conserved as they are? Alternatively, which "new" foods-not traditional or not Mediterranean-could be introduced to help people to still respect the basic healthy Mediterranean diet principles? The present article intends to help solving these new questions.

Is it smoking or related lifestyle variables that increase metabolic syndrome risk?

Metabolic syndrome is considered as mainly caused by a deleterious lifestyle (sedentarity and diet). That smoking contributes to metabolic syndrome had been suggested by several small studies and a meta-analysis. The interesting study by Slagter et al.

[Cardiovascular prevention in the sportsman: a role for statins?].

Official guidelines bring regularly the physician to consider a statin treatment in physically active individuals, including athletes. Several factors speak against such an attitude: the available risk scores are far from precise and do not sufficiently take into account lifestyle; when you correct for the level of physical activity, cholesterol loses its' predictive value; physical activity diminishing cardiovascular risk by at least a factor 2, an athlete is always at low risk. In addition, the secondary effects of statins are liable to interfere significantly with sport activities, paradoxically increasing the risk.

Recent findings on the health effects of omega-3 fatty acids and statins, and their interactions: do statins inhibit omega-3?

Early randomized controlled trials (RCTs) demonstrated the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids (n-3), whereas recent RCTs were negative. We now address the issue, focusing on the temporal changes having occurred: most patients in recent RCTs are no longer n-3 deficient and the vast majority are now treated with statins. Recent RCTs testing n-3 against arrhythmias suggest that n-3 reduce the risk only in patients not taking a statin.

[Sedentarity--sedentary lifestyle and physical activity].

Physical inactivity is the most important planetary reason for non-transmissible mortality. Technical developments have allowed a sedentary lifestyle. This causes health problems such as insulin resistance, atherosclerosis, heart failure and obesity.

Depression and immunity: age, severity, and clinical course.

To begin exploring the relationships between immunity and clinical characteristics of depressive disorders and to further investigate the association of Major Depressive Disorder with age- and severity-related alterations in T lymphocyte numbers and in response to mitogens, we investigated 53 untreated adult outpatients with DSM III-R Major Depressive Episode (MDE) and 53 healthy matched controls. The only group difference between MDE patients and matched controls was a trend (p < .06) for a decreased number of NK cells in depressed subject.

Immunity, major depression, and panic disorder comorbidity.

Because recent research reports indicated clinical and biological differences in major depression with and without comorbid Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R) panic disorder, and as altered immune measures were reported in selected subgroups of depressive patients, we investigated 51 pairs of major depressive episode (MDE) subjects, and gender- and age-matched healthy controls in order to determine if T lymphocytes number and function abnormalities were associated with Panic Disorder comorbidty. We found that those MDE subjects with DSM-III-R panic disorder (PD) had greater numbers of T cells (p less than 0.05) and PHA mitogen (p less than 0.