Donato, thank you for joining us in ecancer television. Diet and cancer and specifically the Mediterranean diet, you know a great deal about that and you’re here to tell the meeting some of the data you have of the relationship between the Mediterranean diet and cancer. What’s new in this because we have known quite a bit about this from the past, haven’t we?

Yes, in fact the Mediterranean diet has been well associated to cardiovascular disease but with cancer until twenty years ago there were not that many studies proving an association with cancer. Nowadays we can formally say that the Mediterranean diet is a protective behaviour against cancer.

Is it one thing? I know things like brassica feature in it, don’t they?

Well brassica is the family of cauliflower, it’s like brassica, broccoli and others are definitely heavily protective against several kinds of cancer. Of course fruit also has a protective role because of antioxidants.

Because of antioxidants.

And also because of vitamin C that is known to have a protective effect, so, again. Now of course lowering the amount of heavy protein and fats like red meat and butter and preferring fish and carbohydrates like pasta is also protective against several kinds of cancers.

It’s one thing knowing that these protective factors exist but the whole world is going in the other direction, eating processed foods and rejecting these foods. What do you do about that?

In Italy we are strongly campaigning for the restoration of a traditional Mediterranean diet. In fact, we are going to have a meeting just in this coming September on this. And definitely we don’t want to miss the tradition being replaced by processed food and modern eating. We are very much investing in youth and schools are our main educational target today.

So a campaign for slow food.

Yes. Well slow food but also for increasing the healthy diet, increasing the consumption of half a kilo a day of greens or reducing snacks and sugar, beverages and all the other things. And in fact we have to admit that food behaviour is still persistent in several southern parts of our country.

So there was historical data showing that very southern parts of Italy have very good health, cardiovascular and cancer mortality being low. You’re saying it’s still happening?

In fact it was Ancel Keys, Nobel Prize for cholesterol, from Chicago that lived several years in Pioppi, a small village, fishing village in the south of Naples. And he discovered the enormous difference in mortality for cardiovascular disease and cancer between the southern Italians and Chicago people. Then he proved that the diet was the main factor of protection.

So what are the messages today? Because lifestyle is also an issue: smoking, alcohol, physical activity. How important is the diet?

Well, the diet is one of the main factors but also we understand that those risk factors should not be seen as isolated factors but because they have also a lot of consortium activity, they work together. So smoking, alcohol, diet and physicality they are strongly associated to each other so the idea is to promote a good lifestyle.

So, to sum it up, what would you recommend doctors and people to do to reduce cancer risks overall in just a few words?

Yes, four items: stop smoking; walk half an hour a day; take fruit and vegetables, half a kilo a day; reduce meat and only one glass of red wine at the meal.