Freddie Mac: Mortgage rates ease, with 30-year fixed at 3.51%

By E. Scott Reckard

February 28, 2013, 8:32 a.m.

Mortgage rates eased a bit early this week, Freddie Mac said, with 30-year fixed loans available for solid borrowers at an average 3.51%, down from 3.56% last week.

The 15-year fixed loan edged down from an average 2.77% to 2.76%. Borrowers would have been dinged for an average 0.8% of the loan amount in upfront lender fees and discount points to obtain the rates, Freddie Mac said in its weekly report, issued Thursday.

Start rates for popular types of adjustable mortgages also fell slightly, according to Freddie Mac. The big housing finance company surveys lenders each week about the terms they are offering to borrowers who have good credit scores, 20% down payments or home equity, and the financial wherewithal to afford payments.

Quiz: How much do you know about mortgages?

The average fixed rate for a 30-year loan bottomed out late last year at a record low of 3.31% as calculated by Freddie Mac. It has since risen to the 3.5% range, compared to 3.9% last year at this time, 5% for all of 2009 and 6% for all of 2008.

This week’s decline was influenced by the February consumer price index, said Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Frank Nothaft.  The index held steady for the second month in a row, soothing concerns that inflation might set in and push rates higher.  

ALSO:

Pending home sales rise

Home prices make strong gains

Emmy winner sells estate for $19.5 million

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Race for L.A. city controller heats up

A previously low-profile race for Los Angeles city controller has begun to heat up as opponents of City Councilman Dennis Zine accuse him of "double dipping" the city's payroll and question why he is considering lucrative tax breaks for a Warner Center developer.

Zine, who for 12 years has represented a district in the southeast San Fernando Valley, is the better known of the major candidates competing to replace outgoing Controller Wendy Greuel.

The others are Cary Brazeman, a marketing executive, and lawyer Ron Galperin. Zine has raised $766,000 for his campaign, more than double that of Galperin, the next-highest fundraiser, and has the backing of several of the city's powerful labor unions.

He also has been endorsed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and several of his council colleagues. Galperin is backed by the Service Employees International Union, one the city's largest labor groups, and Brazeman is supported by retired Rep. Diane Watson and several neighborhood council representatives.

With the primary ballot less than a week away, Brazeman and Galperin have turned up the heat on Zine, hoping to push the race beyond the March 5 vote. If no one wins more than 50% of the ballots cast, the top two vote-getters will face a runoff in the May general election.

In a recent debate, Zine's opponents criticized him for receiving a $100,000 annual pension for his 33 years with the Los Angeles Police Department and a nearly $180,000 council salary. Brazeman and Galperin called it an example of "double dipping" that should be eliminated.

That brought a forceful response from Zine, who shot back that he gives a big portion of his police pension check to charities.

"I am so tired of hearing 'double dipping,' " he said. "I worked 33 years on the streets of Los Angeles. I have given over $300,000 to nonprofits that need it.... That's what's happened with that pension."

In the same debate, Brazeman accused Zine of cozying up to a Warner Center developer by pushing for tax breaks on a project that already has been approved. The nearly 30-acre Village at Westfield Topanga project would add 1 million square feet of new shops, restaurants, office space and a hotel to a faded commercial district on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

"The councilman proposed to give developers at Warner Center tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks even though it's a highly successful project," he said. "He wants to give it away."

City records show that less than a month after the development was approved in February 2012, Zine asked the council for a study looking at possible "economic development incentives" that could be given to Westfield in return for speeding up street and landscaping enhancements to the project's exterior.

The motion's language notes that similar tax breaks have been awarded to large projects in the Hollywood and downtown areas, and that "similar public investment in the Valley has been lacking." Westfield is paying for the $200,000 study.

Zine defended his decision before the debate audience, saying if the study finds that the city will not benefit, no tax breaks will be awarded. "If there's nothing there, then they get nothing," Zine said.

The controller serves as a public watchdog over the city's $7.3-billion annual operation, auditing the general fund, 500 special fund accounts and the performance of city departments. Those audits often produce recommendations for reducing waste, fraud and abuse.

But the mayor and the council are not obligated to adopt those recommendations, and as a result the job is part accountant, part scolder in chief. All the candidates say they will use their elective position not only to perform audits but also to turn them into action.

Their challenge during the campaign has been explaining how they will do that.

Zine, 65, says his City Hall experience has taught him how to get things done by working with his colleagues. He won't be afraid to publicly criticize department managers, he said, but thinks collaboration works better than being combative.

"You can rant and rave and people won't work with you," he said. "Or you can sit down and talk it out, and you can accomplish things."

Galperin, 49, considers himself a policy wonk who relishes digging into the details to come up with ways to become more efficient with limited dollars and to find ways to raise revenue using the city's sprawling assets. For instance, the city owns two asphalt plants that could expand production and sell some of its material to raise money to fix potholes, he said.

He's served on two city commissions, including one that found millions of dollars in savings by detailing ways to be more efficient. Zine is positioning himself as a "tough guy for tough times," but the controller should be more than that, Galperin said.

"What we really need is some thoughtfulness and some smarts and some effectiveness," he said. "Just getting up there and saying we need to be tough is not going to accomplish what needs to be done."

Brazeman, 46, started his own marketing and public relations firm in West Los Angeles a decade ago and became active in city politics over his discontent with a development project near his home. He has pushed the council to change several initiatives over the last five years, including changes to the financing of the Farmers Field stadium proposal that will save taxpayer dollars, he said.

As controller, he would pick and choose his battles, and, Brazeman said, be "the right combination of constructive, abrasive and assertive."

catherine.saillant@latimes.com

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Global Health: After Measles Success, Rwanda to Get Rubella Vaccine

Rwanda has been so successful at fighting measles that next month it will be the first country to get donor support to move to the next stage — fighting rubella too.

On March 11, it will hold a nationwide three-day vaccination campaign with a combined measles-rubella vaccine, hoping to reach nearly five million children up to age 14. It will then integrate the dual vaccine into its national health service.

Rwanda can do so “because they’ve done such a good job on measles,” said Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for the Measles and Rubella Initiative. M.R.I. helped pay for previous vaccination campaigns in the country and the GAVI Alliance is helping financing the upcoming one.

Rubella, also called German measles, causes a rash that is very similar to the measles rash, making it hard for health workers to tell the difference.

Rubella is generally mild, even in children, but in pregnant women, it can kill the fetus or cause serious birth defects, including blindness, deafness, mental retardation and chronic heart damage.

Ms. McNab said that Rwanda had proved that it can suppress measles and identify rubella, and it would benefit from the newer, more expensive vaccine.

The dual vaccine costs twice as much — 52 cents a dose at Unicef prices, compared with 24 cents for measles alone. (The MMR vaccine that American children get, which also contains a vaccine against mumps, costs Unicef $1.)

More than 90 percent of Rwandan children now are vaccinated twice against measles, and cases have been near zero since 2007.

The tiny country, which was convulsed by Hutu-Tutsi genocide in 1994, is now leading the way in Africa in delivering medical care to its citizens, Ms. McNab said. Three years ago, it was the first African country to introduce shots against human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer.

In wealthy countries, measles kills a small number of children — usually those whose parents decline vaccination. But in poor countries, measles is a major killer of malnourished infants. Around the world, the initiative estimates, about 158,000 children die of it each year, or about 430 a day.

Every year, an estimated 112,000 children, mostly in Africa, South Asia and the Pacific islands, are born with handicaps caused by their mothers’ rubella infection.

Thanks in part to the initiative — which until last year was known just as the Measles Initiative — measles deaths among children have declined 71 percent since 2000. The initiative is a partnership of many health agencies, vaccine companies, donors and others, but is led by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Unicef and the World Health Organization.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 27, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the source of the financing for the upcoming vaccination campaign in Rwanda. It is being financed by the GAVI Alliance, not the Measles and Rubella Initiative.

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Pending home sales rise in January, industry group reports

Pending home sales rose in January in every U.S. region except the West, according to new data.

The National Assn. of Realtors said that its index of pending sales — based on the number of home purchase contracts signed — rose 4.5% in January from the previous month and 9.5% from January 2012.

The index, at 105.9, is at it hits highest reading since April 2010, the month a popular tax credit for buyers was driving the market up.

 “Favorable affordability conditions and job growth have unleashed a pent-up demand,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the group, said in a news release.

The group expects higher home sales in the short term but sales growth will be muted because there are not enough homes available for sale, Yun said.

An index level of 100 is equal to the average level of contract activity during 2001, which was the first year to be studied and also considered historically a healthy year of sales volume.

Month over month, pending sales were up 8.2% in the Northeast, 4.5% in the Midwest and 5.9% in the South. They were essentially flat, up just 0.1%, in the West, according to the index data.

ALSO:

One-third of U.S. homeowners have no mortgage

Fewer Americans are stuck in underwater mortgages

Banks step up efforts to forgive mortgage debt in California

Read More..

Gaza militants break cease-fire with rocket attack into Israel

Israeli police remove the remains of a rocket in the town of Ashkelon. (EPA / February 26, 2013)

By Edmund Sanders

February 26, 2013, 12:05 a.m.

JERUSALEM -- Palestinian unrest spread Tuesday to the Gaza Strip, where militants fired a rocket into southern Israel, shattering one of the longest periods of quiet along that border in recent memory.

It was the first rocket fired since the signing of a November cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, ending their eight-day clash.

The morning attack came as Palestinians in the West Bank protest the death of 30-year-old Arafat Jaradat, a gas station attendant who died suddenly in Israeli custody after being arrested for throwing rocks at an Israeli settler.

Palestinians claim Jaradat was tortured to death. Israelis say the exact cause of his Feb. 23 death has not yet been determined.

The Grad rocket fired early Tuesday landed in an open area near the Israeli city of Ashkelon, causing no damage or injuries.

ALSO:

Palestinians at funeral protest death of prisoner

Syria ready to talk to rebels, foreign minister says

U.S. military denies abducting, killing civilians in Afghan province

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Dorothy Hamill and Andy Dick among 'Dancing' stars

NEW YORK (AP) — A gold-medal figure skater, a country music legend and a kooky comedian are stepping their way onto "Dancing With the Stars."

ABC says Dorothy Hamill, Wynona Judd and Andy Dick are among 11 contenders for the mirrored ball on the new season of the celebrity dance competition.

Other famous faces in the show's 16th edition include standup comic and actor D.L. Hughley, Baltimore Ravens football player Jacoby Jones and former "American Idol" contestant Kellie Pickler.

Also on hand will be former welterweight boxing champ Victor Ortiz, "General Hospital" star Ingo Rademacher, actress-singer Zendaya Coleman and Lisa Vanderpump from "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," as well as Olympic gold-medal gymnast Aly Raisman.

The new "Dancing With the Stars" season kicks off on ABC with a two-hour premiere on March 18.

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Books: Gauging Faces and Bodies in the Botox Age

You never know what a little vanity will do for a person’s health. Some people bloom in their quest for physical improvement, others wither, and a few are completely destroyed. Despite centuries’ worth of efforts to penetrate the complicated thickets where health and beauty intertwine, there is always more to explore, as two new books make clear.

Dr. Eric Finzi, a dermatologist in the Washington area, has produced what may be the first authorized biography of botulinum toxin, the fearsome poison that, bottled into mild-mannered Botox, enhances foreheads everywhere. This little molecule does its good work by paralyzing muscles: In the forehead it inactivates the frown-producing corrugators, while used elsewhere on the head and body it can alleviate migraine headaches, stop problem sweating and ease the spasticity associated with a range of neurological diseases.

But even those who know all about the drug’s physical effects will be intrigued by Dr. Finzi’s narrative, because it turns out that cosmetic Botox may not be all about vanity after all. Research studies, including some by Dr. Finzi, have found that the substance appears to alleviate depression more safely and perhaps more effectively than the usual treatments.

That result at first seems trivial and obvious: If you stop frowning at people, they’ll like you more  and treat you better, and you won’t feel so blue. But the process turns out to be considerably more sophisticated and complicated, because it appears to apply even to people without visible frown lines.

Dr. Finzi calls it “noncosmetic cosmetic surgery” and traces the postulated mechanism to some of the lesser-known work of William James and Charles Darwin. Both thinkers argued that facial expressions are not just the outward manifestations of emotion, but vital links in the unconscious neurological processes that create emotion. In other words, if you cannot smile, you will never be as happy as if you could, and if you cannot frown, you will be unable to experience the full intensity of the negative emotions manifested by frowning, depression included.

This “facial feedback hypothesis” has found some modern confirmation in a study showing that injections of Botox into the forehead seem to inhibit activation of the amygdala, the brain structure thought to regulate all gut-wrenching emotion.

Dr. Finzi expands his narrative with a discussion of the subtleties of common facial expressions, including homage to interested parties like Norman Cousins and his idea that laughter could cure disease.

But the book’s major focus is the frown: Dr. Finzi offers anecdotes suggesting that taming overactive corrugators may save marriages and boost careers, and then, spinning some of the still largely debatable theories linking depression and anger with chronic disease, he postulates that Botox treatments may someday prove to help forestall heart disease and cancer.

That’s quite a set of achievements for one bad little molecule, gram for gram the most potent toxin we know. Dr. Finzi is no stylist, but the momentum of his argument keeps the reader with him for the duration (and undoubtedly quite a few overactive corrugators will be soothed into submission as a result).

The complexities of the face almost pale in comparison with those of the torso, as Abigail C. Saguy makes clear in “What’s Wrong With Fat?” “Once you put down this book you will never hear the word ‘obesity’ the same way again,” she promises, and she is absolutely correct.

Dr. Saguy, a sociologist at U.C.L.A., methodically teases out all the overtones of the loaded words we use to describe big bodies. These bodies are, after all, neither good nor bad, just big.

But “fat” often implies the coexistence of sloth, gluttony and self-indulgence. “Obesity” equals disease to medical professionals, while in the world of public health it is a raging epidemic with substantial global mortality. Those immersed in the conventional ideals of beauty see being overweight as an aesthetic disaster, but others find it sexually irresistible, and to activists “fat” has become a rallying cry, with weight-based discrimination a violation of social justice as deplorable as that stemming from race or gender.

In fact, the concept of bigness has become so laden with overtones good and bad — guilt, blame, fear, anger and desire, among others — that finding a value-free way to describe men and women who are larger than average has become almost impossible. “Heavy,” “plus-size,” “corpulent” and “fleshy” all carry weighty implications in one sphere or another.

Dr. Saguy analyzes it all, and asks why. She winds up paying particular attention to the debate in the medical world over the actual health consequences of being fat: Studies keep confounding the reigning supposition that thin is best with evidence that modestly overweight may be even better. Meanwhile, those who are larger than average are routinely blamed for their size, a phenomenon augmented by deplorably simplistic media coverage (unlike anorexia, interestingly enough, which is remarkably free of the same connotations of personal fault).

Much of Dr. Saguy’s text is academic and requires some determination to penetrate, but she also provides immensely readable nuggets, notably a brief discussion of her experiences attending an annual convention of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, where, seven months pregnant, she underwent a funhouse-mirror body-image transformation worthy of Alice in Wonderland. Like Dr. Finzi’s narrative deficiencies, hers fade into unimportance in the face of fascinating and illuminating material.

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Senate committee OKs Jacob Lew nomination for Treasury secretary

WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee voted Tuesday to confirm Jacob J. Lew as Treasury Secretary despite Republican concerns about his support for higher taxes to reduce the nation's debt as well as his tenure as a Citigroup Inc. executive before joining the Obama administration.

The 19-5 vote by the Senate Finance Committee moves the nomination of Lew, the former White House chief of staff, to the full Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he hoped to hold a confirmation vote by the end of the week.

Lew is expected to be confirmed, which would provide President Obama with a key lieutenant in negotiations with congressional Republicans as automatic budget cuts are set to start on Friday.

Lew played a similar role in the 1990s while serving as budget director in the Clinton administration.

Quiz: How much do you know about looming federal budget cuts?

Some Republican senators had tough questions for Lew at his Feb. 13 confirmation hearing, focusing on his work as at Citigroup in the years leading up to the financial crisis.

Lew was managing director and chief operating officer at Citi Global Wealth Management from 2006 to 2008 and at Citi Alternative Investments from 2008 to early 2009.

Lew said his job focused on broad management of the business and he was not involved in making decisions about investments at the company, which was hit hard by risky bets in the housing market and received one of the largest government bailouts.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said he voted against the nomination because of unsatisfactory answers from to written questions about salary and other compensation Lew received while at Citigroup and earlier, when he was executive vice president and chief operating officer at New York University.

"What we have seen so far is Mr. Lew was very good at getting paid by taxpayer-funded institutions," Grassley said.  "If Mr. Lew will not answer our questions now, why should we on this committee expect him to answer any questions if he’s confirmed?"

Grassley was particularly concerned about a $1.4-million loan received while working at NYU. Grassley said Lew could not recall the interest rate or other terms of the loan.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the committee's top Republican, said Lew was "less than forthcoming" about his time at Citigroup and NYU.

"I do have serious reservations regarding Mr. Lew," Hatch said. "I like him personally very much. He certainly has a lot of experience in this town."

Hatch said he voted to confirm Lew because he believes the president "is owed a fair amount of deference in choosing people to work in his administration."

ALSO:

Average Americans are feeling pain of U.S. debt

Jacob J. Lew, White House chief of staff, to get Treasury nod

Treasury secretary nominee faces tough questions from Senate

Read More..

'Argo' wins best picture on scattered Oscar night

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Just as Oscar host Seth MacFarlane set his sights on a variety of targets with a mixture of hits and misses, the motion picture academy spread the gold around to a varied slate of films. "Argo" won best picture as expected, along with two other prizes. But "Life of Pi" won the most awards with four, including a surprise win for director Ang Lee.

"Les Miserables" also won three Academy Awards, while "Django Unchained" and "Skyfall" each took two.

Among the winners were the front-runners throughout this lengthy awards season: best actor Daniel Day-Lewis for his deeply immersed portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's epic "Lincoln," best actress Jennifer Lawrence as a troubled young widow in "Silver Linings Playbook" and supporting actress Anne Hathaway as the doomed prostitute Fantine in the musical "Les Miserables." Christoph Waltz was a bit of a surprise for supporting actor as a charismatic bounty hunter in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," an award he'd won just three years ago for Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds."

The 22-year-old Lawrence, who got to show her lighter side in the oddball romance "Silver Linings Playbook" following serious roles in "Winter's Bone" and "The Hunger Games," gamely laughed at herself as she tripped on the stairs en route to the stage in her poufy, pale pink Dior Haute Couture gown. Backstage in the press room, when a reporter asked what she was thinking, she responded: "A bad word that I can't say that starts with 'F.'" Keeping journalists in hysterics, she explained, "I'm sorry. I did a shot before I ... sorry."

That's the kind of raunchiness MacFarlane himself seemed to be aiming for as host while also balancing the more traditional demands of the job. There was a ton of singing and dancing during the three-and-half-hour broadcast — no surprise from the musically minded creator of the animated series "Family Guy" — including a poignant performance from Barbra Streisand of "The Way We Were," written by the late Marvin Hamlisch, during the memorial montage. But MacFarlane also tried to keep the humor edgy with shots at Mel Gibson, George Clooney, Chris Brown and Rihanna.

An extended bit in which William Shatner came back from the future as his "Star Trek" character, Capt. James T. Kirk, had its moments while a joke about the drama "Flight" being restaged entirely with sock puppets was a scream. A John Wilkes Booth gag in reference to "Lincoln" was a bit of a groaner, perhaps intentionally, while MacFarlane relied on his alter ego, the cuddly teddy bear from his directorial debut "Ted," to make a crack about a post-Oscar orgy at Jack Nicholson's house. (MacFarlane already has indicated he's one-and-done with Academy Awards hosting.)

But it was Day-Lewis who came up with the kind of pop-culture riffing that's MacFarlane's specialty. In accepting his record third best-actor award from presenter Meryl Streep, he deadpanned that before they'd swapped roles, he originally was set to play Margaret Thatcher "and Meryl was Steven's first choice for 'Lincoln,' and I'd like to see that version."

Besides best picture, "Argo" won for Chris Terrio's adapted screenplay and for William Goldenberg's film editing. Affleck famously (and strangely) wasn't included in the best-director category for his thrilling and surprisingly funny depiction of a daring rescue during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. But as a producer on the film alongside George Clooney and Grant Heslov, he got to take home the top prize of the night.

"I never thought I'd be back here, and I am because of so many of you in this academy," said Affleck, who shared a screenplay Oscar with pal Matt Damon 15 years earlier for their breakout film "Good Will Hunting."

Among the wisdom he's acquired since then: "You can't hold grudges — it's hard but you can't hold grudges."

Lee, who previously won best director in 2006 for "Brokeback Mountain" (which also didn't win best picture), was typically low-key and self-deprecating in victory. His "Life of Pi" is a fable set in glorious 3-D, but Spielberg looked like the favorite for "Lincoln." The film also won for its cinematography, original score and visual effects.

"Thank you, movie god," the Taiwanese director said on stage. Later, he thanked his agents and said: "I have to do that," with a little shrug and a smile.

"Les Miserables" also won for sound mixing and makeup and hairstyling. The other Oscar for "Django Unchained" came for Tarantino's original screenplay. Asked about his international appeal backstage, Tarantino was enthusiastic as usual in saying: "I'm an American, and a filmmaker, but I make movies for the planet Earth."

Speaking of global hits, the James Bond action thriller "Skyfall" won for its original song by the unstoppable Adele (with Paul Epworth). It also tied for sound editing with "Zero Dark Thirty," the only win of the night for Kathryn Bigelow's detailed saga about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Among the other winners, "Searching for Sugar Man," about a forgotten musician's rediscovery, took the prize for best documentary feature. Pixar's fairy tale "Brave" won best animated feature.

One of the biggest moments of the night came at the end, as First Lady Michelle Obama announced the winner of the best picture prize. Backstage, Affleck described how surreal it was when he heard her say the word: "Argo."

"I was sort of hallucinating when that was happening," he explained. "In the course of a hallucination it doesn't seem that odd: 'Oh look, a purple elephant. Oh look, Michelle Obama.'"

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Contact AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire

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Mediterranean Diet Can Cut Heart Disease, Study Finds

About 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables, and even drink wine with meals, a large and rigorous new study found.

The findings, published on the New England Journal of Medicine’s Web site on Monday, were based on the first major clinical trial to measure the diet’s effect on heart risks. The magnitude of the diet’s benefits startled experts. The study ended early, after almost five years, because the results were so clear it was considered unethical to continue.

The diet helped those following it even though they did not lose weight and most of them were already taking statins, or blood pressure or diabetes drugs to lower their heart disease risk.

“Really impressive,” said Rachel Johnson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont and a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association. “And the really important thing — the coolest thing — is that they used very meaningful end points. They did not look at risk factors like cholesterol of hypertension or weight. They looked at heart attacks and strokes and death. At the end of the day, that is what really matters.”

Until now, evidence that the Mediterranean diet reduced the risk of heart disease was weak, based mostly on studies showing that people from Mediterranean countries seemed to have lower rates of heart disease — a pattern that could have been attributed to factors other than diet.

And some experts had been skeptical that the effect of diet could be detected, if it existed at all, because so many people are already taking powerful drugs to reduce heart disease risk, while other experts hesitated to recommend the diet to people who already had weight problems, since oils and nuts have a lot of calories.

Heart disease experts said the study was a triumph because it showed that a diet is powerful in reducing heart disease risk, and it did so using the most rigorous methods. Scientists randomly assigned 7,447 people in Spain who were overweight, were smokers, had diabetes or other risk factors for heart disease to follow the Mediterranean diet or a low-fat one.

Low-fat diets have not been shown in any rigorous way to be helpful, and they are also very hard for patients to maintain — a reality born out in the new study, said Dr. Steven E. Nissen, chairman of the department of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

“Now along comes this group and does a gigantic study in Spain that says you can eat a nicely balanced diet with fruits and vegetables and olive oil and lower heart disease by 30 percent,” he said. “And you can actually enjoy life.”

The study, by Dr. Ramon Estruch, a professor of medicine at the University of Barcelona, and his colleagues, was long in the planning. The investigators traveled the world, seeking advice on how best to answer the question of whether a diet alone could make a big difference in heart disease risk. They visited the Harvard School of Public Health several times to consult Dr. Frank M. Sacks, a professor of cardiovascular disease prevention there.

In the end, they decided to randomly assign subjects at high risk of heart disease to three groups. One would be given a low-fat diet and counseled on how to follow it. The other two groups would be counseled to follow a Mediterranean diet. At first the Mediterranean dieters got more intense support. They met regularly with dietitians while the low-fat group just got an initial visit to train them in how to adhere to the diet followed by a leaflet each year on the diet. Then the researchers decided to add more intensive counseling for them, too, but they still had difficulty staying with the diet.

One group assigned to a Mediterranean diet was given extra virgin olive oil each week and was instructed to use at least 4 tablespoons a day. The other group got a combination of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts and was instructed to eat about an ounce of them each day. An ounce of walnuts, for example, is about a quarter cup — a generous handful. The mainstays of the diet consisted of at least 3 servings a day of fruits and at least two servings of vegetables. Participants were to eat fish at least three times a week and legumes, which include beans, peas and lentils, at least three times a week. They were to eat white meat instead of red, and, for those accustomed to drinking, to have at least 7 glasses of wine a week with meals.

They were encouraged to avoid commercially made cookies, cakes and pastries and to limit their consumption of dairy products and processed meats.

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