ISLAMABAD: Heart disease has been identified as the leading cause of death globally by the World Health Organization (WHO). But according to nutritional experts, following a healthy diet can significantly reduce the risk of developing heart disease.
In a statement, scientists have ranked some popular diets based on American Heart Association’s (AHA) evidence-based dietary guidelines for heart health.
The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet was identified as the top diet recommended by the AHA guidelines. This diet focuses on consuming foods that don’t cause high blood pressure. The pescatarian diet, which includes dairy, eggs, fish, and other seafood but no meat or poultry, followed closely at 92% of the AHA guidelines. The lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet, which allows eggs and dairy, followed at 86% of the guidelines. The Mediterranean diet was ranked at 89%, parallel to the AHA dietary recommendations.
According to Christopher Gardner, lead author and a research professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center in California, these diets share so much in common that they can be grouped together as a top “tier” of eating patterns. He added, “We were basically trying to say a diet does not have to be 100 to be good. All of the top tier diets are plant-based, and if they are off base a bit, aren’t hard to fix.”
Low-carb diets and various keto diets
Gardner also highlighted that very low-carb diets and various keto diets were at the lower level of heart-healthy eating patterns. These diets put a lot of stress on red meat, whole dairy, and saturated fats while limiting fruit and vegetable intake. On the other hand, a vegan diet that incorporated more than 10% fat and low-fat diets, such as volumetrics, were in the second tier, meeting 78% of the AHA dietary guidelines.
The statement from the experts is intended for physicians to help them get up to speed with the latest AHA ranking of the 10 diets. Gardner said, “It’s a cheat sheet for doctors. When they do ask about diet, which I don’t think is all that often, and a patient says, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m paleo. I’m vegan. I’m keto, or I’m DASH,’ I don’t think they really know what that means.”
Gardner stressed that “each diet in the rankings was evaluated as the diet was intended to be eaten, not as people might actually do in real life.” Nonetheless, following any of these top-tier diets can bring numerous benefits, including reducing the risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, dementia, memory loss, depression, and breast cancer, as well as promoting weight loss, stronger bones, a healthier heart, and longer life.
A healthy diet is vital for maintaining good heart health. Following any of the top-tier diets recommended by the experts can help reduce the risk of developing heart disease and improve overall health.
