Does the Mediterranean diet prevent heart attacks? NEJM retracts (and replaces) high-profile paper

The New England Journal of Medicine has retracted a 2013 paper that provided some proof that the Mediterranean diet can directly prevent heart attacks, stroke, and other cardiovascular problems.

The original paper, “Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet,” has been cited 1,759 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.

But the findings haven’t disappeared — the authors have replaced the paper with a new version, which softens its earlier claims.

To find out more about what happened — and who discovered the issues with the paper (someone whose name will be familiar to some of our readers) — read more in our story, our first for NPR’s Shots.


Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].


One thought on “Does the Mediterranean diet prevent heart attacks? NEJM retracts (and replaces) high-profile paper”

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.