2.3. Study Intervention
Participants followed a MedDairy or LFD diet intervention for 8 weeks, separated by an 8-week washout phase where participants returned to their habitual diet. Participants were stratified by gender and age and randomly assigned to their first dietary phase (MedDairy or LFD) by a blinded independent staff member. Instructions on how to adopt each diet were provided by a dietitian at the start of each dietary phase. Detailed descriptions of the MedDairy and LFD dietary phases and instructions are as previously reported [The low-fat diet was modelled after the PREDIMED trial [