In the past, there have been many studies about the health benefits of this diet stemming from the European countries of Spain, Greece and the south of Italy, including having amazing effects in treating high blood pressure and heart disease - and now, there's new evidence pointing to the Mediterranean diet's cancer prevention benefits.

In a study stemming from Spain's Universidad de Navarra and published on JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from the southern European country studied the effects of the Mediterranean diet on cancer, particularly on its breast variation, and evidence points that there's a strong percentage of lowering chances of developing this condition later in life when this diet is followed.

According to NPR, the Mediterranean diet cancer study claims that following this food plan (which is based on heavy consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, fish, nuts and olive oil) with an extra four tablespoons of olive oil per day can dramatically lower chances of developing breast cancer later in life.

In all, as The Daily Mail reports, 68 percent of the women in the Mediterranean diet cancer study reduced their risk of ever suffering from this condition, being compared to those women following a low-fat diet.

This Mediterranean diet cancer study stems from another one in the European country, PREDIMED (Prevention with Mediterranean Diet, from its name in Spanish), designed to test the effects of this eating plan in the prevention of heart disease; for this, 4,282 women from ages 60 to 80 (and a high risk of cardiovascular disease) were recruited in a study ranging from 2003 and 2009.

According to Eureka Alert, those women who supplemented their daily intake with extra virgin olive oil showed 68 percent less risk of developing malignant breast tumors later in life than those following the standard Mediterranean diet.

"The intervention paradigm implemented in the PREDIMED trial provides a useful scenario for breast cancer prevention because it is conducted in primary health care centers and also offers beneficial effects on a wide variety of health outcomes," wrote the authors of the Mediterranean diet cancer study. "Nevertheless, these results need confirmation by long-term studies with a higher number of incident cases."