- Reaction score
- 11,938
17 countries, 150,000 people, presented by the president of the world heart association.
Salient points in my opinion:
- He's only looking at heart disease, not all cause mortality, so bear that in mind. Fruits and vegetables might be neutral for heart disease, but they can still be good to prevent cancer for example;
- Carbs higher than about 40% increase heart disease risk. The response to consumption below 40% is flat, but above 40% there is a huge increase in heart disease risk.
- Consumption of polyunsaturated and saturated fats have a neutral impact on heart disease risk. Monounsaturated fat consumption has a significant, positive impact, so you should literally go nuts.
- Fruits and vegetables are neutral, beans/legumes are protective. That means feel free to include some chick peas, lentils, etc in your diet, a few times a week probably.
- Low salt diets are bad for you. This is important as it explains why people had to fudge their data to "prove" that salt is bad for you. They were fitting a linear fit. What was shown here is that low salt is always bad, and high salt is bad if you have hypertension. The ideal sodium intake turns out to be 5 grams a day, or roughly twice the current recommended value.