Functional Foods and Functional Diets

One of the best known prototype of functional diet is the so called Mediterranean diet (MD). The
Mediterranean-style diet was first described in the 1950s to 1960s in the south of Europe where adult
life expectancy was among the highest in the world and rates of coronary heart disease, certain
cancer, and other nutrition- related chronic diseases were among the lowest (Keys et al., 1986). Not a
specific pattern but a collection of eating habits traditionally followed by the population of the
Mediterranean basin, first defined the MD called “traditional”. This dietary pattern is characterized by
abundant plant foods consumption in the form of fruits, vegetables, breads, other forms of cereals,
potatos, beans, nuts and seeds; fresh fruits as the typical dessert; olive oil as the main source of
monounsaturated fat; dairy products as principally cheese and yougurt; a low to moderate
comsumption of fish, depending on the proximity of the sea; a low to moderate consumption of
poultry; fewer of four eggs consumed per week; low amount of red meat and wine consumed in low to
moderate amount, normally during meals (Willet et al., 1995). However, there is no single
Mediterranean diet but several definitions because dietary habits vary considerably across the
Mediterranean countries bordering the sea (Sofi, 2009). Nevertheless, the evaluation of the
adherence to a Mediterranean style diet was conducted to develop scores or indexes called
“Mediterranean Scale” or “Mediterranean Diet Score” or “Mediterranean Adexacy Index” or even
“Mediterranean-Style Dietary Pattern Score” based on a priori hypotheses and entended to be close
to the traditional one (Kourlaba and Panagiotakos, 2009, Rumawas et al., 2009).