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Food is the paramount necessity of the people.
The basic characteristics of diet include nutrient content, food combination, and intake time.
Here are some common dietary habits among modern people

Plant based diet

Mediterranean cuisine
The Mediterranean diet includes olives, grains, legumes (edible seeds of leguminous plants), fruits (typical dessert), vegetables and herbs, as well as limited amounts of goat meat, milk, wildlife, and fish. Bread (whole wheat bread, made from barley, wheat, or both) dominates every meal, with olive oil accounting for a relatively large proportion of energy intake.

The Seven Counties Study, led by Ancel Keys, recognized the health attributes of Mediterranean cuisine. The initial design included comparing the diets and lifestyles of seven countries based on data from one or more male cohorts in each country. In the cohort with olive oil as the main dietary fat, both all-cause mortality and coronary heart disease mortality were lower than those in the Nordic and American cohorts.

Nowadays, the term “Mediterranean diet” is used to describe a dietary pattern that follows the following characteristics: plant-based foods (fruits, vegetables, minimally processed grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds), paired with moderate to equal amounts of dairy products, and mainly fermented dairy products (such as cheese and yogurt); Small to moderate amounts of fish and poultry; A small amount of red meat; And usually wine is consumed during meals. It represents a potential dietary adjustment approach that is significant for many health outcomes.

The umbrella review conducted on a meta-analysis of observational studies and randomized clinical trials (including data from over 12.8 million participants) suggests a protective association between adherence to a Mediterranean diet and the following health outcomes (a total of 37 analyses).

vegetarian diet
For ethical, philosophical, or religious reasons, vegetarianism has existed since ancient times. However, since the last few decades of the 20th century, people have increasingly focused on the health related effects of vegetarianism, as well as its ecological benefits (reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing water and land use). Nowadays, vegetarianism may encompass a range of dietary behaviors characterized by differences in attitudes, beliefs, motivations, and social and health dimensions. Vegetarianism can be defined as any dietary pattern that excludes meat, meat products, and to varying degrees other animal products, while plant-based diet is a broader term used to describe dietary patterns that primarily rely on non animal derived foods but do not exclude animal derived foods.

Given the diversity and multifaceted nature of vegetarian patterns, identifying specific biological mechanisms is quite challenging. At present, its impact on multiple pathways has been proposed, including metabolic, inflammatory, and neurotransmitter pathways, gut microbiota, and genomic instability. There has always been controversy about the relationship between well adhering to vegetarian diet and reducing cardiovascular disease, ischemic heart disease, death caused by ischemic heart disease, dyslipidemia, diabetes, certain types of cancer, and possibly all-cause death risk.

Low fat diet

Due to the fact that lipids and carbohydrates are the two macronutrients that contribute the most to total energy intake in modern diets, balancing these two macronutrients is the goal of several dietary adjustment methods aimed at successfully controlling weight and achieving other health outcomes. Before promoting low-fat diets in the medical community to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, low-fat diets aimed at weight loss already existed. In the 1980s, people attributed coronary heart disease and obesity to dietary fat, and low-fat diets, low-fat foods, and low-fat concepts became increasingly popular.

Although there is no unified definition, when the proportion of lipids in total energy intake is less than 30%, the diet is considered a low-fat diet. In an extremely low-fat diet, 15% or less of total energy intake comes from lipids, about 10-15% comes from proteins, and 70% or more comes from carbohydrates. Ornish diet is an extremely low-fat vegetarian diet, where lipids account for 10% of daily calories (polyunsaturated fat to saturated fat ratio,>1), and people can eat freely in other aspects. The adequacy of nutrients in low-fat and extremely low-fat diets largely depends on individual food choices. Adhering to these diets can be challenging as it not only limits many animal derived foods, but also restricts vegetable oils and oily plant-based foods such as nuts and avocados.

Restrict carbohydrate diet

Atkins diet, ketogenic diet, and low carbohydrate diet
In the first decade of the 21st century, some randomized controlled trials showed that participants recommended the lowest carbohydrate diet (i.e. various versions of the Atkins diet) had greater weight loss and greater improvement in some risk factors for coronary heart disease compared to those assigned to a higher carbohydrate diet. Although not all studies have found the superiority of the aforementioned dietary adjustments during the follow-up or maintenance phase, and compliance varies, the scientific community subsequently began to explore the clinical potential of this diet in greater depth.

The term ketogenic is used to describe various diets. For most people, consuming only 20-50 g of carbohydrates per day can detect ketone bodies in urine. These diets are called extremely low carbohydrate ketogenic diets. Another classification method is mainly used for the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy, based on the ratio of dietary lipids to the total amount of dietary protein and carbohydrates. In the classic or strictest version, this ratio is 4:1 (<5% of energy comes from carbohydrate diets), while in the loosest version, this ratio is 1:1 (modified Atkins diet, about 10% of energy comes from carbohydrates), and there are several different options between the two.

A diet with high carbohydrate content (50-150 g per day) is still considered a low carbohydrate diet compared to regular intake, but these diets may not cause metabolic changes caused by an extremely low carbohydrate diet. In fact, diets with carbohydrates accounting for less than 40% to 45% of total energy intake (presumably representing average carbohydrate intake) can be classified as low carbohydrate diets, and there are several popular diets that may fall into this category. In a zone diet, 30% of calories come from protein, 30% come from lipids, and 40% come from carbohydrates, with a protein to carbohydrate ratio of 0.75 per meal. Like the South Beach diet and other low carbohydrate diets, the regional diet advocates the intake of complex carbohydrates with the aim of reducing postprandial serum insulin concentration.

The anticonvulsant effect of ketogenic diet is achieved through a series of potential mechanisms that can stabilize synaptic function and enhance resistance to seizures. These mechanisms are not yet fully understood. A low carbohydrate ketogenic diet seems to reduce the frequency of seizures in children with drug-resistant epilepsy. The above diet can achieve seizure control in the short to medium term, and its benefits seem similar to those of current antiepileptic drugs. A ketogenic diet may also reduce the frequency of seizures in adult patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, but the evidence is still uncertain, and some promising results have been reported in adult patients with super refractory status epilepticus. The most common clinical adverse reactions of ketogenic diets include gastrointestinal symptoms (such as constipation) and abnormal blood lipids.

Deshu diet

In the early 1990s, a multicenter randomized clinical trial (DASH trial) was conducted to evaluate the impact of dietary patterns on blood pressure control. Compared with participants who received a control diet, participants who received an 8-week experimental diet experienced a greater decrease in blood pressure (an average decrease in systolic blood pressure of 5.5 mm Hg and an average decrease in diastolic blood pressure of 3.0 mm Hg). Based on these pieces of evidence, the experimental diet called Deshu diet has been identified as an effective strategy for preventing and treating hypertension. This diet is rich in fruits and vegetables (five and four servings per day, respectively), as well as low-fat dairy products (two servings per day), with lower levels of saturated lipids and cholesterol, and relatively lower total lipid content. When adopting this diet, the potassium, magnesium, and calcium content is close to the 75th percentile of the intake of the American population, and this diet contains a large amount of fiber and protein.
Since the initial publication of the paper, in addition to hypertension, we have also studied the relationship between the De Shu diet and various other diseases. Better adherence to this diet is significantly associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality. Multiple observational studies suggest that this diet is associated with a reduction in cancer incidence rate and cancer related mortality. An umbrella review of the meta-analysis showed that, according to prospective cohort data of about 9500 million participants, better adherence to the de shu diet was associated with lower incidence rate of metabolic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke and diabetes. A controlled trial showed a decrease in diastolic and systolic blood pressure, as well as a decrease in multiple metabolic indicators such as insulin, glycated hemoglobin levels, total cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol levels, and weight loss.

Maide diet

The Maide diet (a combination of Mediterranean and Deshu diets aimed at delaying neurological degeneration as an intervention) is a dietary pattern aimed at meeting specific health outcomes (cognitive function) needs. The Maide diet is based on previous research on the relationship between nutrition and cognition or dementia, combined with the characteristics of the Mediterranean diet and the Deshu diet. This diet emphasizes the intake of plant-based foods (whole grains, vegetables, beans, and nuts), especially berries and green leafy vegetables. This diet restricts the consumption of red meat, as well as foods with high total and saturated fat content (fast food and fried foods, cheese, butter and margarine, as well as pastries and desserts), and uses olive oil as the main edible oil. It is recommended to consume fish at least once a week and poultry at least twice a week. The Maide diet has shown some potential benefits in terms of cognitive outcomes and is currently being actively studied in randomized clinical trials.

Limited time diet

Fasting (i.e. not consuming food or calorie containing beverages for 12 hours to several weeks) has a history of several hundred years. Clinical research mainly focuses on the long-term effects of fasting on aging, metabolic disorders, and energy balance. Fasting is different from calorie restriction, which reduces energy intake by a certain proportion, usually between 20% and 40%, but the frequency of meals remains unchanged.

Intermittent fasting has become a less demanding alternative to continuous fasting. It is a collective term, with various different plans, including alternating the fasting period and restricted eating period with the normal eating period or the free eating period. The methods used so far can be divided into two categories. The first category is measured in weeks. In the alternate day fasting method, fasting occurs every other day, and after each fasting day, there is an unrestricted eating day. In the alternate day improved fasting method, extremely low calorie diets are alternated with eating freely. You can eat continuously or discontinuously for 2 days per week, and eat normally for the remaining 5 days (5+2 dietary method). The second major type of intermittent fasting is limited time eating, measured on a daily basis, which occurs only during specific time periods of the day (usually 8 or 10 hours).