Move over, Mediterranean diet: New ‘portfolio diet’ is the silver bullet for health, America’s top cardiologists say – here are the foods you should invest in

Move over, Mediterranean diet. The nation’s leading organization dedicated to improving heart health has endorsed the lesser-known “portfolio diet.”

Much like diversifying a stock portfolio with several promising investments, the “portfolio diet” involves combining several healthy diets.

Invented by researchers at Harvard University TH Chan School of Public Health, it consists of a range of cholesterol-lowering foods.

It’s not as well known as other popular diets, such as the Mediterranean diet or the DASH diet, but it has many similarities.

It’s not as well known as other popular diets like the Mediterranean diet or the DASH diet, but the “portfolio diet” has many similarities.

For example, followers are encouraged to swap in plant-based proteins for red meat and eat lots of complex fiber-rich foods like oatmeal and healthy fats like nuts.

But the portfolio diet is more plant-based and discourages animal protein more than other diets.

‘We want people to look at the combinations of foods – in real diets for real people in the real world – that, just like in the financial world, bring a range of benefits weighed against reducing a range of risks,’ Dr. David JA Jenkins, creator of the Portfolio Diet, told WedbMD.

The Portfolio Diet is not intended for weight loss. Rather, the main goal is heart health.

People who followed the diet for 30 years had a 14 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke compared to people who followed a standard diet.

The Harvard researchers published their findings in the Journal of the American Heart Association CirculationThis indicates that the leading heart health organization endorses the diet plan as a highly effective way to prevent cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Andrea Glenn, a nutritionist at Harvard and co-author of the study, said: ‘Through this research, we found that the portfolio diet score was consistently associated with a lower risk of both heart disease and stroke, highlighting the opportunity for people to lower their risk of heart disease by consuming more of these foods recommended in the diet .’

Previous research has shown that following the portfolio diet rich in cholesterol-lowering foods is about as effective as medication. But until now, little is known about the diet’s long-term benefits.

The team conducted their research among more than 210,000 healthcare professionals who participated in three different nationally representative surveys of risk factors for serious diseases, which began recruiting in the 1980s.

They published food frequency questionnaires that asked subjects to review a limited checklist of foods and drinks, with a frequency response section that allowed subjects to report how often they consumed each item.

Participants completed the questionnaire at the beginning of the study and then every four years for 30 years.

The food frequency questionnaire was used to develop a Portfolio Diet Score (PDS), which awards points for consuming higher amounts of approved foods and subtracts points for consuming foods that have a negative effect on cholesterol levels, such as saturated fats or trans fats .

The goal is specifically to lower LDL cholesterol, because this type of “bad” cholesterol is strongly linked to the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The researchers said: ‘This dietary pattern is also consistent with American Heart Association guidelines that promote consumption of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, healthy plant proteins, minimally processed foods and healthy unsaturated vegetable oils.

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During the 30-year follow-up, researchers recorded 16,917 cases of cardiovascular disease, including 10,666 cases of coronary heart disease and 6,473 strokes.

People who scored highest on the IBS had a 14 percent lower risk of developing heart disease and stroke.

And for every 25 percentile increase in IBS, the risk of total cardiovascular disease, including coronary heart disease and stroke, decreased by eight percent.

Using blood plasma samples to measure the effects, researchers found that the diet was linked to lower levels of inflammation in the body, which promotes the build-up of harmful plaques made up of LDL cholesterol in the blood vessels, causing them to narrow and restrict normal blood flow to obstruct. .

This drastically increases the risk of heart attack or stroke.

The study did not focus on weight loss, which is often the goal of people when starting other diets such as Keto, Mediterranean and DASH.

Dr. Kristina Petersen, a nutritionist at Penn State University and co-author of last spring’s AHA statement, which rated 10 popular diets for their heart health benefits, said, “We’re always looking for ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, and one An effective way to do that is to lower blood cholesterol levels, especially LDL cholesterol.’

The only reason the portfolio diet wasn’t included in that list, Dr. Petersen said, was because “it’s not particularly common.”

She added: “It’s not an all-or-nothing approach. You can follow your own diet and make a few small changes and see the cardiovascular benefits.

‘You don’t have to follow it as a strict vegan or vegetarian diet to see benefits, but the more foods (from the portfolio diet) you eat, the greater the protection against the risk of cardiovascular disease, as we see in the current seen a study.

study. We need to get the word out.”