Unprocessed red meat, whole grains and full-fat dairy can be part of a healthy diet, according to a study published this Friday in the European Heart journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).
Carried out in 80 countries spread over all continents, the study associates diets that give greater importance to fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and fish, as well as dairy products (mainly full fat) with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). early death. It also shows that the inclusion of raw red meat or whole grains has little impact on the results, according to an ESC statement.
Study author Andrew Mente, of McMaster University’s Population Health Research Institute in Hamilton, Canada, says the public, food industry and decision makers have focused on low-fat foods, with nutritional supplements that emphasize the reduction of fats and saturated fats.
However, the work “suggests that the priority should be to increase protective foods, such as nuts (…), fish and dairy, rather than limiting dairy products (especially those with a lot of fat) to amounts very low”, indicates the aforementioned. in the statement.
“The results show that up to two daily servings of mostly full-fat dairy products can be included in a healthy diet” and that these dairy products “may protect against high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome.”
The study examines the relationships between diet, scored based on six foods that have been associated with longevity, and health outcomes for the global population, specifically in terms of mortality, heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular disease.
The PURE diet includes a daily intake of 2-3 servings of fruit and 2-3 servings of vegetables, as well as a weekly intake of 3-4 servings of legumes, seven servings of nuts, 2-3 servings of fish and 14 servings of of dairy products (mainly full fat and not including butter or ‘whipped cream’).
“A score of 1 (healthy) was assigned to an intake greater than the group median and a score of 0 (unhealthy) to an intake equal to or less than the median,” with a maximum score of six, the statement said.
Factors such as age, gender, waist-to-hip ratio, educational level, income, urban or rural location, physical activity, smoking, diabetes, use of antihypertensive medications, or to reduce cholesterol and total energy intake.
“Mean diet score was 2.95” and “during a median follow-up of 9.3 years, there were 15,707 deaths and 40,764 cardiovascular cases.”
Healthier diet (score of 5 or higher) was associated with a 30% lower risk of death, 18% lower chance of CVD, 14% lower risk of heart attack, and 19% lower risk of accident cerebrovascular compared with the least healthy (1 or less score).
“Associations between healthy diet scores and outcomes were confirmed in five independent studies including a total of 96,955 CVD patients in 70 countries.”
Andrew Mente notes that this “was by far the most diverse study of nutrition and health outcomes in the world and the only one with sufficient representation from high-, middle-, and low-income countries.”
Salim Yusuf, principal investigator for PURE, noted that “the associations were strongest in areas with lower diet quality, including South Asia, China and Africa, where calorie intake was low and dominated by refined carbohydrates,” and notes that this “suggests that a large proportion of adult deaths and cardiovascular disease worldwide may be due to undernutrition, i.e. low intake of energy and protective foods, rather than overnutrition,” which ” challenges current beliefs.
For Dariush Mozaffarin, of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, in Boston (United States), the results of this study “call for a reassessment of the relentless guidelines to avoid full-fat dairy products.”
The cardiologist and professor of Medicine also considers that this research is a reminder of the “continuous and devastating increase in chronic diseases related to diet (…) and the power of protective foods to help deal with these problems”, calling for guidelines nutrition and measures that reflect the knowledge provided by science.
Source: TSF
