Top Diets for Heart Health, According to the American Heart Association

CNN
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Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women worldwide. world health organizationbut there are ways to significantly reduce the risk.

Along with regular exercise and quitting smoking, a healthy diet is an important way to keep heart disease at bay. But which diet best meets the American Heart Association dietary guidelines?

In a new scientific statement, leading experts in nutrition ranked 10 popular diets for their ability to meet the AHA’s evidence-based standards. Dietary Guidance for Mental Healthwill be published in 2021.

winner? dash dietwhich was 100% consistent with the AHA goals. heart-healthy foodDASH stands for Diet to Stop High Blood Pressure. High blood pressure is the leading cause of heart disease and stroke.

Pescatarian diets that allowed dairy, eggs, fish, and other seafood, but no meat or poultry, were 92% compliant with AHA guidelines. Lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets that allowed dairy and eggs and variations that included either were 86% concordant.

The award-winning Mediterranean diet was 89% consistent with the AHA dietary recommendations. According to Christopher Gardner, lead author and professor of medical research at the Stanford Prevention Research Center in California, the popular diet recommends a small glass of red wine each day and doesn’t limit salt intake, largely because 3 I was ranked. The person who directs the nutrition research group.

“The American Heart Association says people who haven’t started drinking shouldn’t drink alcohol,” Gardner said. “If they drink, keep it to a minimum.”

Studies show that a Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of diabetes, high cholesterol, dementia, memory loss, depression, and breast cancer, and is linked to weight loss, stronger bones, heart health, and longer life.

However, these diets all share so much in common that they can be grouped together as the top ‘tier’ of eating patterns.

“We basically wanted to say that diets don’t have to be 100,” he said. It’s not hard to fix either. But paleo and keto really can’t be fixed.

Various keto diets, such as ultra-low-carb diets such as Atkins and the well-structured ketogenic diet (WFKD), include lean meat, whole dairy, saturated fat, and limited fruit and vegetable intake.

Vegan diets incorporating 10% or more fat and low-fat diets such as Volumemetrics were in the second tier, both meeting 78% of the AHA’s dietary guidelines, according to the statement.

Very low-fat diets with less than 10% fat (72%) and low-carbohydrate diets such as South Beach, Zone and Low Glycemic Index (64%), which are applied to some vegan lifestyles, are less regulated. No, it was not compensated. Third stage of the diet.

People interested in heart health can and should use the new AHA ranking of 10 diets, but the scientific statement is written for physicians, says Gardner. says Mr. The goal is to keep physicians up-to-date, as nutrition is not often a priority in medical school.

“This is a cheat sheet for doctors,” Gardner said. “When they ask about diets — I don’t think that often — and patients say, ‘Oh, yes, I’m paleo. I’m vegan. I don’t think you really know what it means.”

That’s absolutely true, said prevention Cardiologist Dr. Andrew Freeman, Director of Cardiovascular Prevention and Wellness at National Jewish Health, a Denver hospital, said:

“We surveyed 1,000 cardiologists five or six years ago and found that about 90% of us knew very little about nutrition,” said the AHA statement, which was involved in creating the statement. Not so, says Freeman.

But patients should discuss nutrition with their doctors during routine checkups, Freeman added.

“If you ask me in your mind, do you think we should have drummed about nutrition in the last 100 years? Yes. So every time I can drum a little more, I always say yes.” ” he said.

Now that color-coded charts are in hand, doctors have the information to discuss which foods to include in these meals and which foods to emphasize, limit, or avoid, Gardner said. Instead of talking about the healthful nutrients and benefits of foods, advice should focus on the overall pattern of eating.

“When it was a single heart-healthy nutrient, you could inject that nutrient into a food and claim it was a healthy food, but it wasn’t.” Or, if you have superfoods like chia seeds, you can sprinkle chia seeds on really unhealthy foods and say, “Oh, I’m protected.” Must be part of the pattern.

At that point, Gardner emphasized that each meal in the rankings was rated with the intention of eating it, not as people would actually eat it. , or other stress, provides information on how physicians advise patients who are not eating as optimally as possible.

But resolving these concerns may require more than individual willpower, Freeman said.

“Diet is hard to follow in a society that allows ultra-processed comfort foods like bacon-on-a-stick to become the norm, and asking society to change the major tenants of everyday life is very difficult. It’s going to be difficult,” he said.

“But the plant-based food movement is the fastest growing food movement in the country,” he said.