Cost and Cost-Effectiveness of the Mediterranean Diet: Results of a Systematic Review
Open accessAbstract
The growing impact of chronic degenerative pathologies (such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease) requires and pushes towards the development of new preventive strategies to reduce the incidence and prevalence of these diseases. Lifestyle changes, especially related to the Mediterranean diet, have the potential to modify disease outcomes and ultimately costs related to their management. The objective of the study was to perform a systematic review of the scientific literature, to gauge the economic performance and the cost-effectiveness of the adherence to the Mediterranean diet as a prevention strategy against degenerative pathologies. We investigated the monetary costs of adopting Mediterranean dietary patterns by determining cost differences between low and high adherence. Research was conducted using the PubMed and Scopus databases. Eight articles met the pre-determined inclusion criteria and were reviewed. Quality assessment and data extraction was performed. The adherence to the Mediterranean diet has been extensively reported to be associated with a favorable health outcome and a better quality of life. The implementation of a Mediterranean dietary pattern may lead to the prevention of degenerative pathologies and to an improvement in life expectancy, a net gain in health and a reduction in total lifetime costs.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Reduced red meat, refined grains, and sweets and reduced health care costs due to a healthier diet can make these patterns more cost-effective.
“However, reduced red meat, refined grains, and sweets and reduced health care costs due to a healthier diet can make these patterns more cost-effective.72”
From Popular dietary patterns: alignment with American Heart Association 2021 dietary guidance: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. (2023) · cites this paper as [72]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 42 · Cited by 74
- Authors
- Saulle, R., Semyonov, L., & La Torre, G.
- Affiliations
- Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
- Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, Rome 00185, Italy
- ORCID
- Saulle, Rosella
- Venue
- Nutrients
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2013-11-18
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 4566-4586
- ISSN
- 2072-6643 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3847749
- OpenAlex
- W1968508432
- Cited by
- 74
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 7
- FWCI
- 0.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nutrients (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- IRIS Research product catalog (Sapienza University of Rome) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Nutritional Studies and Diet
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pathology and Forensic Medicine › Alcohol Consumption and Health Effects
- Keywords
- Mediterranean diet, cost-effectiveness, dietary adherence, degenerative diseases, disease prevention, lifestyle intervention, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, lifetime costs, quality of life
- MeSH terms
- Chronic Disease, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Health, Humans, Life Style, Quality of Life, Health Behavior, Diet, Mediterranean
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
