Sears - The Mediterranean zone : unleash the power of the worlds healthiest diet for superior weight loss, health, and longevity

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Unleash the Power of the Worlds Healthiest Diet for Superior Weight Loss, Health, and Longevity

No book can replace the diagnostic expertise and medical advice of a trusted physician. Please be certain to consult with your doctor before making any decisions that affect your health or extreme changes in your diet, particularly if you suffer from any medical condition or have any symptom that may require treatment.

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Published in the United States by Zinc Ink, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

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L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN -P UBLICATION D ATA
Sears, Barry.
The Mediterranean zone : unleash the power of the worlds healthiest diet for superior weight loss, health, and longevity / Barry Sears, Ph.D.
pagescm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8041-7917-1
eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-7919-5
1. Reducing diets. 2. DietMediterranean Region. 3. Diet therapyMediterranean Region. 4. InflammationDiet therapy. 5. Weight loss. 6. Longevity. 7. Nutrition. 8. Health. I. Title.
RM222.2.S3893 2014
613.25dc23 2014026641

www.ballantinebooks.com

eBook design adapted from print book design by Caroline Cunningham

v3.1_r2

a + prh

To Hippocrates, who was right when he said,
Let food be your medicine, and let medicine be your food.

T he United Nations has declared the Mediterranean diet a historical treasure. The Mayo Clinic recommends it as a way to combat heart disease and Alzheimers. The New England Journal of Medicine has reported time and again on the medical benefits of the Mediterranean diet. Health and beauty magazines constantly tout the Mediterranean diets effectiveness.

Yet, somehow, no one can really describe it. How many calories a day do you need to maintain your weight on the Mediterranean diet? No one knows. How much protein per day do you need to be on the Mediterranean diet? No one knows. What is the right balance of protein to carbohydrate on the Mediterranean diet? No one knows. Why does it really work? No one knows.

This fuzzy thinking is what passes for nutritional knowledge in America today. A lot of talk, a lot of hype, but with very little true understanding behind those words. Nutrition is complex, but complex doesnt attract page views or sell magazines. What actually gains public attention are simple solutions (especially concerning the elimination of evil foods) easily put into sound bytes that resonate on TV but have little scientific basis.

But the Mediterranean diet cant be reduced to simple rules such as dont eat red meat or drink red wine. And for that reason, many people believe that having a glass of wine with their pasta means theyre following the Mediterranean diet.

If you can unlock the true nature of the Mediterranean dietif you can identify the factors that make it workyou can begin to make an enormous impact on your health starting today. And if you understand how this traditional diet works, you can refine it and take it to a much higher level to generate even greater health benefits, including the most elusive of them all for most Americans: permanent weight control.

The Mediterranean Zone represents the evolution of the Mediterranean diet into a cohesive dietary program that provides not only the structure needed for maximum health benefits, but also offers the simple rules that make it easy to use in your daily life. The Mediterranean Zone also represents a return to the past to bring the accumulated folklore of the Mediterranean diet into the twenty-first century. In many ways, the preface of The Mediterranean Zone could have easily been written by Hippocrates 2,500 years ago when he said, Let food be your medicine, and let medicine be your food. Yet to truly understand his wisdom requires an understanding of the recent advances in molecular biology (gene transcription factors, epigenetics, and so on) that explain why the Mediterranean diet has such a powerful impact on ones health.

Although the science behind the Mediterranean Zone is robust, most people only care about (1) whats it in for them and (2) how easily it can be incorporated into their hassled life. So lets go right to the bottom line: Whats in it for you is an extraordinary litany of life-altering benefits, including freedom from heart disease, diabetes, and other modern scourges; a dramatic reduction in your risk of Alzheimers and other diseases of aging; younger, healthier-looking skin; and permanent weight control. And as far as its ease of use, this book breaks it all down into a plan thats so simple, all you need is one hand, one eye, and a watch. If you have those three things, you can reap the benefits of the Mediterranean Zone for a lifetime.

W hen I wrote my first book, The Zone, in 1995, I was careful not to use the word diet in the title. In fact, the book was written for cardiologists to alert them to the power of food to alter hormonal responses, especially those hormones involved in inflammation. The book was meant as a clarion call to the medical community that the low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet being recommended to the American public by the medical establishment was going to lead to epidemics of obesity and diabetes driven by increased inflammation. Not inflammation caused by a microbe or an injury, but inflammation caused by what we were eating.

The focus of The Zone was on a little known group of hormones called eicosanoids. Even though the 1982 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded for understanding the importance of these hormones in driving inflammation, outside of a few in academic medicine, by 1995 still virtually no one knew anything about them.

I knew that getting attention for the book was going to be a challenge, and my publisher readily agreed. So neither of us was surprised that the initial sales of The Zone were modest and quickly petered out. I was convinced that the right message wasnt getting across, and that the media were looking at this book as just another fad diet book. Recklessly (without telling my wife), I went in search of a publicity firm that could help reposition the message of The Zone.

Since I grew up in Los Angeles, I figured if you could publicize films, you probably could do the same for bookseven technical books on diet-induced inflammation. (Talk about being nave.) So I went to the top PR firm in Hollywood and asked them if they had ever publicized a book. Their answer was no, but they were not willing turn a client away, so Michael Keatons press agent became the head of their new book publicity department with me as their first client.

I told them the only way I could judge their efforts was by any increase in book sales (which wouldnt be too hard). Not much happened at first, but with only about four more weeks to go before my money ran out, I caught a break when Dennis Prager, a prominent LA radio talk show host, agreed to have me on his program because we both shared the same publisher. Although he liked the book, he made it clear that if there werent any callers in the first fifteen minutes, he would have to take me off the air. I told him I was just happy to get a chance to discuss the book. Three hours later, the phone lines were still jammed with callers, and I was still on the show. The book became the #1 best seller in Los Angeles the next week and a month later the #1 best seller on the