Seven Countries Study

Writing in 1975, project officer Henry Blackburn identified two "strikingly polar attitudes", characterising them as persisting "academic" and "pragmatic" views with "much talk from each and little listening between.

"[1] In the 1940s, a University of Minnesota researcher, Ancel Keys, postulated that the apparent epidemic of heart attacks in middle-aged American men was related to their mode of life and possibly modifiable physical characteristics.

[3] In the mid-1950s, with improved methods and design, Keys recruited collaborating researchers in seven countries to mount the first cross-cultural comparison of heart attack risk in populations of men engaged in traditional occupations in cultures contrasting in diet, especially in the proportion of fat calories of different composition, the Seven Countries Study still under observation today.

It demonstrated that the correlation between blood cholesterol level and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk from 5 to 40 years follow-up is found consistently across different specially selected cultures in these seven countries.

[6][7][8] The Seven Countries Study suggested that elevated blood pressure (hypertension) was correlated with risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.

[12][13][14][11][15] What exactly is meant by "Mediterranean Diet" today, was detailed by Antonia Trichopoulou (wife of Dimitrios Trichopoulos),[16] and Anna Ferro-Luzzi.

[31][32][33][34] Initial results from the Seven Countries Study in North Karelia (Finland) prompted public pressure for the authorities to act to reduce historically high levels of chronic disease in the region.

The results influenced a subsequent public health program, the North Karelia Project, which ran from 1972 until 1997, and which had among its aims a reduction in levels of peoples' saturated fat intake.