The best diet to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death is the one that prioritizes the consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole milk products, nuts, legumes and fish. This emerges from a study of 245,000 people from 80 countries around the world that challenges the recommendation to limit high-fat dairy products and replace them with skimmed ones that have been launched for decades by doctors, dietitians and health administrations.
The authors of the study, released by the European Society of Cardiology through its European Heart Journal, argue that rather than reducing fat content, the priority for a healthy diet is to increase protective foods such as nuts (often avoided for their calories), fish, and full-fat dairy products.
“Our results show that up to two servings a day of dairy products, mainly full-fat, can be included in a healthy diet, and that is in line with modern nutrition science, which shows that full-fat dairy products may protect against high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome,” explained study first author Andrew Mente of McMaster University’s Population Health Research Institute in Hamilton, Canada.
The study scored the participants’ diets based on their intake of six foods that science has linked to increased longevity, followed them for an average of 9.3 years, and analyzed the correlation of the scores with cases of death, heart attack, stroke, or heart failure after adjusting for other factors such as age, gender, obesity, income and education level, physical activity, smoking, diabetes, or use of certain medications.
And, according to published results, the healthier diet was associated with a 30% lower risk of death, an 18% lower chance of cardiovascular disease, a 14% lower risk of heart attack and a 19% lower risk of stroke relative to with the less healthy diet.
The researchers note that the strongest associations were seen in areas where the diet was poorer, lower in calories and dominated by refined carbohydrates, such as South Asia, China and Africa. “This suggests that a large proportion of deaths and cardiovascular disease in adults may be due to low energy intake and protective foods rather than overnutrition, which challenges current beliefs” and should lead to a reassessment of guidelines for avoiding full-fat dairy, said Salim Yusuf, lead author of the study.
The president of the Catalan Society of Cardiology, Ramon Brugada, justifies that whole dairy products are valued as protective foods because recent studies have shown that they reduce blood pressure and the risk of stroke. However, he considers that although there is no doubt about its value in the diet of countries with significant problems of malnutrition, it can be understood that it is advisable to limit its intake in countries with very high obesity rates and where there is an urgent need to reduce calories in the diet. diet. “Full-fat dairy products have a positive impact from the point of view of cardiovascular health and can be part of a balanced diet, but always in moderation,” summarizes the cardiologist.
