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 The French Paradox >The healthiest place in the world ?
The term, the "French paradox", became famous in 1991 when CBS’s 60 Minutes reported the flagrant inconsistency in the lifestyles and rates of heart disease among people in southern France compared to the other developed nations...
In spite of a diet of rich foods—including more butter, cheeses, eggs and sauces, an estimated 15 percent of their daily calories obtained from saturated fats and less exercise—the rate of heart disease for southern French people is only 40 percent of that of Americans. And the region of France where the results were most striking was the south-west, centred on Lot-et-Garonne.
The “paradox,” or the incompatibility of a diet rich in fatty foods and a decreased risk of heart disease has been explained by the tendency for people in France to drink red wine regularly with their meals and an apparent factor in red wine that protects against heart disease. In addition to research reported by St. Leger in 1979, who found that French people who consumed moderate levels of wine had a lower incidence of heart disease than would have been predicted statistically, similar results were reported by Dr. Serge Renaud, head of the Lyon Center of INSERM and Dr. Michel de Lorgeril in 1992.
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