But pretty much every doctor will agree that a Mediterranean “diet” is the way to go. I’ve also heard 2 different cardiologist suggest this.
This touches on several of my pet peeves. First, the real mediterranean diet, at least to the extent that it still exists, is quite different than the politically correct (AKA wrong) version described by Doctors and cardiologists in North America. If you actually watch people in Italy and Spain eat one of the first things you notice is that they eat very little for breakfast, perhaps some coffee and cheese and meat. No bowls of oatmeal and cereal, let alone pancakes and waffles. And if you do a search for the central market in Cadiz Spain, to pick one example, yes, you'll see every imaginable type of fish, but you'll also see plenty of meat. What you won't see is any significant amount of wheat product.
Mainstream western Doctors and Cardiologists on the other hand are fighting tooth and nail to stop the trend toward diets that shift metabolism away from problematic foods like wheat and toward at least a balance between fat and sugar in the metabolism. They also continue to stress eating breakfast when eliminating breakfast is the easiest way for most people to reduce calories and up-regulate fat burning.
Another aspect of all long-lived regions is plenty of sunlight which western doctors also fight against. So...I wouldn't necessarily take up smoking, but Doctors and Cardiologists would never qualify as good sources of diet information out in the real world where results matter. If you look at the people who have made the most positive diet impacts in the last 30 years (people like Gary Taubes, Paul Jaminet, Mark Sisson, Loren Cordain, Chris MAsterjohn, Ben Greenfield, etc.) most are not medical Doctors although a brave few like Mike and Mary Dan Eades, Eric Westman, William Davis and some others are, however the AMA and all other major medical groups have fought against them.
The issue is not whether the Carnivore diet is ideal for everyone, but rather that there are many people who see dramatic health improvements on it after having tried virtually every other diet, and that the plant-based mantra wildly understates the issues plants can create and wildly overstates issues with meat.