No doubt you've heard all the "heart healthy" claims made by many foods and calorie controlled diet plans, yet a review conducted by Andrew Mente, Ph.
D.
of the Population Health Research Institute and colleagues shows only some of these plans back up those claims with strong evidence of actually lowering your heart disease risk.
Until this work, there hadn't been a systematic review of just how strong the evidence of dietary factors in cardiovascular disease might be.
Heart disease, as the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.
S.
(and around the world), gets lots of attention.
This disease kills more people than all forms of cancer combined.
As dire as this sounds, there are many forms of cardiovascular disease that can be treated (even prevented) by making healthy lifestyle choices that include a "heart healthy" diet and exercise.
There are things you can do now, today, to help yourself.
Stop smoking, lower your cholesterol and keep high blood pressure under control.
To conduct their review on diet and heart disease, the team performed a systematic search for prospective studies conducted between 1950 and June 2007.
The search included nearly 200 different studies (146 prospective cohort studies, 43 randomized controlled trials).
Cohort studies look back at the habits of a particular group of people, while randomized controlled trials assign participants randomly to a dietary intervention or a control group.
The results of all these studies were then pooled and a predefined algorithm was used to rate the evidence behind a heart healthy claim.
The end result? Only three specific dietary factors had strong evidence of being heart disease fighters.
Diets rich in veggies, nuts (loaded with monounsaturated fatty acids) and those that were closest to following a Mediterranean-style diet with lots of fruits, veggies, legumes, nuts, whole grains, cheese or yogurt and fish have the strongest evidence of lowering your risk of heart disease.
Only a Mediterranean-style diet has been found, in randomized, controlled trials, to cut the risk of heart disease.
So if you're considering making a change in what you eat to reduce your heart disease risk, this is the plan backed by the most hard evidence as having some benefit.
Of course the typical Western style diet comes with foods high in trans fatty acids as well as processed meats, red meat, butter, refined grains and high fat dairy products that are known to have a negative impact on heart disease risk.
Those foods with a high glycemic index such as simple or refined carbs (white bread, pasta and rice) are also trouble as they cause blood sugar levels to spike and have been found to raise the risk of heart disease.
Other dietary factors such as omega-3 fatty acids in fish, as well as whole grains, alcohol, vitamins E and C, beta-carotene, folate, fruit and fiber were found to have moderate evidence in support of their heart healthy claims.
More research in this area is needed.
"Although investigations of dietary components may help to shed light on mechanisms behind the benefits of dietary patterns, it is unlikely that modifying the intake of a few nutrients or foods would substantially influence coronary outcomes," the researchers conclude.
"Our findings support the strategy of investigating dietary patterns in cohort studies and randomized controlled trials for common and complex chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease.
" In other words, you'll need to make whole scale changes in what you eat if you're concerned about heart disease risk rather than rely solely on calorie controlled diets, and be sure to watch for further research.