Backtrack: Study Says Meat, Cheese Actually Protects Heart, Cuts Heart Attack Chances
If you have been working hard to eat a heart-healthy diet, staying away from red meat, cheeses and butter, you may not have been doing yourself any favors.
Besides missing out on that delicious prime rib or those tasty cheese trays at parties, you may have actually been depriving your heart of essential nutrients it needs to keep you healthy and extend the length of your life.
Last week, at the European Society of Cardiology conference in Munich Germany, Professor Salim Yusuf — the director of the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada — suggested that traditional studies on cardiovascular health are outdated and possibly even biased.
Yusuf and a team of researchers have set traditional dietary guidelines aside for their findings in their new research, the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study.
Medical News Today reported: “Specifically, explain the researchers, such studies are based on the dietary habits of high-income countries and rely on data from decades ago. For these reasons, the new study aimed to make a more comprehensive analysis of people’s dietary patterns across the world.”
The PURE study “examined the link between diet and heart health in almost 140,000 healthy people, aged 35–70, who were clinically followed for over 9 years.”
“During this period, 6,821 people died of a cardiovascular disease and 5,466 experienced major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, and heart failure.”
“The quality of the participants’ diets was assessed using a food score. To develop the score, the researchers included foods that previous studies suggested might lower the risk of premature death, such as: fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes, fish, dairy products, and meat.”
“PHRI’s Andrew Mente, the study’s co-principal investigator, summarized the findings. ‘People who consumed a diet emphasizing fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes, fish, dairy products, and meat had the lowest risks of cardiovascular disease and early death,’ he says.”
To sum it up, the study found those with who scored highest in quality of diet were “11 percent less likely to experience a major cardiovascular event, 17 percent less likely to have a stroke, and 25 percent less likely to die of any cause.”
The study also found that dairy and unprocessed meats were healthy and that refined carbs should be limited.
If you are among those have found the KETO craze, this may sound familiar to you.
Dr. Joseph Mercola recommends the Ketogenic diet for optimal health.
“In Dr. Mercola’s “Fat for Fuel” book, he emphasized the importance of consuming healthy fats, since these are actually the body’s preferred source of fuel. In order for your body to turn fat into energy, it has to be in a state of nutritional ketosis. You can induce your body into this condition through a ketogenic diet — a dietary approach that focuses on three key points: high consumption of healthy fats, moderate intake of high-quality protein and minimal amounts of carbohydrates.
Ketogenic diet is not only ideal for people who are suffering from chronic illness or obesity, but also for those who simply want to optimize their health. This dietary approach can help improve your well-being in more ways than one.
When following a ketogenic diet, your body eventually becomes accustomed to using healthy fats as its main source of fuel. This causes the liver to produce higher amounts of ketones, which are water-soluble fats that burn more efficiently than carbs.”
This article in Tasteaholics also challenges some previously held health directives.
They state a diet higher in fats, moderate proteins and limited carbs may reduce heart health related issues: “By taking carbohydrates out of our diet, we will be able to lower unhealthy triglyceride levels in our body. Monounsaturated triglycerides (the bad kind) are a known risk factor for heart disease, and the lower they are, the less vulnerable we will be to heart disease.”
“Furthermore, we have all heard that cholesterol is not good for you. However, there are different types of cholesterol, and only certain types of cholesterol present an increased risk for heart disease.”
“Also, medium-chain triglycerides, or MCTs, are considered to be more healthy for you than other types of triglycerides. Coconut oil is one great source of MCTs and is a great addition to the keto diet.”
“The higher the levels of HDL and MCTs in your diet, the lower your risk for heart disease. While high carb diets (especially diets high in sugars) will increase the LDL in your blood, a diet that is high in healthy fats (like the keto diet) will expand the HDL content in your blood, thus lowering cholesterol and limiting the cardiovascular health vulnerabilities.”
If you’re a steak lover, like me, this is great news. As more and more research comes out about these health developments, cheese burgers — bunless of course — are looking better and better.
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