Is Your Diet Heart-Healthy?

If you are confused about what you should or shouldn’t eat to reduce your chances of developing heart disease—you’re not alone. Delving into the hundreds of diet books and websites and interpreting the various and conflicting studies can make even the best nutrition scholar shake their head and give up. But there are people who live for statistics and nutrition research and are willing to dig in and find out what is best for our bodies.

The Population Health Research Institute came up with a list of heart-healthy foods as a guide to help us eat better. The list is a result of a study conducted by Andrew Mente Ph.D. and colleagues that rated 189 prior studies published between 1950 and 2007. When a certain food or diet showed a strong link with better heart health and appeared in multiple studies, that food or diet was put at the top of the “good” list, while foods linked to an increased risk of heart disease was place on the “bad” list.

Not surprising, the “good” list contains vegetables, nuts and the Mediterranean diet—which is high in vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, whole grains, cheese or yogurt and fish—all showing strong evidence of lowering the risk of heart disease. The researchers also found that several other foods including omega-3 fatty acids from fish, whole grains, alcohol, vitamins E and C, beta carotene, folate, fruit and fiber showed “moderate evidence” to support a heart-healthy claim.

The bad news is that the Western-style diet is on the “bad” list. Our typical diet is heavy on red meat, refined grains, and high-fat dairy, as well as foods high in trans-fatty acids (processed baked goods, fried foods, and snacks) or foods with a high glycemic index (white bread, white rice and pasta), all of which have been shown to raise the risk of heart disease.

In the middle, also known as the gray area, are foods such as milk and eggs. “Taken together, these findings support a causal relationship between only a few dietary exposures and coronary heart disease, whereas the evidence of most individual nutrients or foods is too modest to be conclusive,” the team said.

Linda Van Horn, professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said while the analysis reaffirms the benefits of a Mediterranean diet, it is more about the strengths and limits of previous studies than advice for consumers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 2.7 million deaths each year are attributable to a diet low in fruits and vegetables. Globally it is estimated to cause about 19 percent of gastrointestinal cancer, 31 percent of ischaemic heart disease, and 11 percent of strokes—thus making it one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.