What we consume can boost our body even in the short term, a new study from St. Louis University shows. After eating the Mediterranean diet for just four days, athletes ran faster than after eating a Western diet. In the study, published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, seven women and four men ate one of two diets for four days: the Mediterranean, with its emphasis on whole fruits and vegetables, nuts, olive oil and whole grains, or the Western, high in trans and saturated fats, dairy, refined sugars, refined and highly processed vegetable oils, sodium and processed foods. After a nine-to-16-day break, they followed the other diet. The athletes exercised on a treadmill for five kilometers after each diet and were found to have run 6 percent faster after following the Mediterranean diet, despite similar heart rates and perceived levels of exertion.

This article appears in the June 2019 issue of Natural Awakenings.