PARIS, Nov 7: Fancy a spot of curried moussaka? Or, for a snack, how about naan bread with a tossed tomato and goat’s cheese salad?

“Indo-Mediterranean” cuisine may be heading for the dinner plates of South Asia if a group of top doctors get their health message across.

A new study suggests the region could halve its rate of heart attacks if it copied some ideas from the famously fit-making food of the Mediterranean rim.

The experts recruited a thousand volunteers to a programme based in Moradabad, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, all of whom had a history of cardiovascular problems.

Half were given a diet rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, walnuts and almonds, supplemented by soybean oil or mustard seed oil — a near-equivalent to the olive oil that is a mainstay of Mediterranean food.

The other half ate conventional Asian food, but followed guidelines under the National Cholesterol Education Programme, which suggests people set a limit on their consumption of fat, especially unsaturated fats.

After two years, the group that followed the “Indo-Mediterranean diet” had had 39 heart attacks compared with 76 who had eaten only the Asian food, and the number of sudden cardiac deaths was likewise halved.

“We noted a significant reduction in serum (blood) cholesterol concentration and other risk factors in both groups but especially in the intervention diet group,” the authors add.

The research was led by R.B. Singh, a professor in nutrition and cardiac health at Moradabad Hospital and Research Centre, and Elliot Berry, a professor of public health at Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School in Al Quds. They report their work in Saturday’s issue of The Lancet, the British medical weekly.

The traditional Mediterranean diet has, in addition to olive oil, lots of fish, fruit, nuts and fresh vegetables, in addition to whole grains such as rice and ground wheat. Meals are often supplemented by a glass or two of red wine.—AFP