PREDIMED — Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet
In plain English
About 7,500 Spaniards at high cardiovascular risk were randomly assigned to a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil, the same diet plus nuts, or a low-fat control diet. Both Mediterranean arms cut major cardiac events by roughly 30% and reduced stroke by 39%. The original 2013 paper was retracted and re-published in 2018 after randomisation issues were corrected — the corrected findings held.
Why it matters
Mediterranean diet + olive oil/nuts cut major cardiac events 30% and stroke 39%.
Informs: Heart Disease·Stroke·Plant-Based Score
Provenance
- Design
- Randomised controlled trial
- Sample size (n)
- 7,447
- Follow-up
- 5 years
- Peer-reviewed
- Yes
- Replications
- 3
- Funding
- Public / academic
- Funders
- Spanish Ministry of Health (Instituto de Salud Carlos III)
- Institutions
- University of Barcelona, Hospital Clínic Barcelona, CIBEROBN
decades.plus score
A transparent 0–100 weighted sum across six components. Higher scores reflect bigger, cleaner, more replicated work.
Caveats
Original randomisation had errors; results are from the corrected 2018 republication. Population was high-CVD-risk Spanish adults — generalisation to other groups is reasonable but not proven.
