Which is healthier for your heart: a Mediterranean-style diet or a low-fat diet? A study reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine looked into this question and the results may surprise you.
Lifestyle measures are essential to reduce your risk of a heart attack -- whether you are trying to prevent your first heart attack or have already had one and do not want to have another. The aim of lifestyle measures is to control the risk factors that can be changed.
Even when medication is required to lower your cholesterol or blood pressure, lifestyle measures can help make medication more effective and may allow you to take a smaller dose (which can reduce the risk of side effects). The most effective lifestyle measures for preventing a heart attack are quitting smoking, eating a healthy diet, and engaging in regular physical activity. Achieving a healthy body weight, drinking alcohol in moderation, and reducing stress are important as well.
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When it comes to a heart-healthy diet, new research from the Annals of Internal Medicine (Volume 145, page 1) reinforces the benefits of a Mediterranean-style diet that is rich in fats from olive oil and nuts. Surprisingly, the study suggests that the Mediterranean-style diet may do your heart more good than a low-fat regimen. The findings, from a study of 772 older adults, highlight that not all dietary fats are alike and strictly limiting all fats may backfire when it comes to your heart health.
Mediterranean-style eating includes plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, and a relatively large amount of fat. But that fat comes mostly in the form of monounsaturated fats instead of the saturated fats found in meat and full-fat dairy products.
The study participants spent three months on one of three diets: a low-fat regimen that limited all types of dietary fat; a Mediterranean diet that emphasized virgin olive oil as the prime fat source; and another Mediterranean diet where nuts provided a large amount of the overall fat intake.
In the end, men and women on either Mediterranean diet showed greater improvements in blood pressure, the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol, and blood glucose (sugar) levels than their peers on the low-fat diet. The olive-oil group also showed an improvement in C-reactive protein, a marker of chronic inflammation. The study wasn’t designed, however, to determine whether nuts or olive oil is the healthier fat source. So it’s probably best to include both in a healthy diet.
