More Firefighters are killed each year by heart attacks than fire, smoke, or dangerous gasses.
Could a solution be a traditional Greek eating pattern (better known as the Mediterranean diet)?
Dr. Stefanos Kales is Cambridge Health Alliance's Chief of Occupational Health. He is also a Professor at the Harvard Medical School and Harvard Chan School of Public Health.
In this TEDx talk from Rhode, Greece, he describes the background and rationale of his team’s $ 1.5-million, 3-year, competitive research grant from the US Dept. of Homeland Security to conduct Mediterranean Diet Nutritional Interventions in selected US firefighters.
The goals of the program are to teach American firefighters to modify their eating habits using the time-honored and scientifically-proven principles of Traditional Greek/Mediterranean nutrition. Dr. Kales emphasizes that this is not an 8- or 12-week diet, but an attempt to teach permanent lifestyle changes that are supported by a robust body of medical evidence.