Brian Bronte-Stuart, then a physician at Groote Schuur Hospital at the University of Cape Town, first proposed in 1958 (a mere 50 years ago) that “ischemic heart disease is no problem among the fish-eating Japanese, the maize-eating Bantu, and the olive-oil-eating peoples along the Mediterranean,”1 thus paving the way for the view that the Mediterranean diet protected those French living in the Mediterranean littoral. The catchy term, the “French paradox,” was invented by the wine-loving French, much as the concept of “extra virgin” olive oil was invented by the Italians. Note the closely related term, “l’exception française” as used by Michelle Holdsworth in her article, and still used politically (as I recently heard on French television channel TV5), seemingly to justify the apparently different and possibly thought-provoking approach that the French might claim to have in attempting to solve insoluble problems...