LDL – ‘bad’ – cholesterol is a key risk factor for developing cardiovascular diseases and a little-known type of diet with a somewhat peculiar name, the portfolio diet, can help reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. precisely because it is specifically designed to reduce LDL cholesterol levels.
This diet includes a selection of plant-based proteins such as soy and other legumes; foods with dietary fiber such as oats, barley, berries, apples and citrus; nuts and seeds; foods or supplements rich in phytosterols that reduce cholesterol absorption; and monounsaturated fats such as those found in avocado and other healthy vegetable oils.
“Through this research, we found that the portfolio diet score was consistently associated with a lower risk of both heart disease and stroke, highlighting an opportunity for people to reduce their risk of heart disease by consuming more amount of these recommended foods in the diet,” said Dr. Andrea Glenn, a postdoctoral dietitian fellow at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston and the University of Toronto and lead author of the study.
“People with the highest portfolio diet score had a 14% lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke compared to those with the lowest score.”
Previous research has shown that the portfolio diet can lower LDL cholesterol as much as a statin, but there was little information about how following the diet for a long period of time might influence cardiovascular disease risk.
Portfolio diet versus DASH and Mediterranean diet
Researchers analyzed dietary data from 166,270 women and 43,970 men enrolled in long-term health studies who did not have cardiovascular disease when they enrolled in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, and who answered questionnaires about their eating habits. every four years.
The authors of the work used the portfolio diet score to classify the consumption of plant proteins, plant nuts and seeds, dietary fiber, phytosterols and plant sources of monounsaturated fatty acids. After up to 30 years of follow-up, those with the highest portfolio diet score had a 14% lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke compared to those with the lowest score. The findings have been published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association.
“We’re always looking for ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, and one effective way to do that is to lower blood cholesterol levels, particularly LDL cholesterol,” says Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State at University Park. , Pennsylvania, which was not involved in the investigation.
Petersen co-authored an American Heart Association (AHA) scientific statement published in April that analyzed 10 popular diets for their heart health benefits. The DASH diet was the only eating pattern to get a perfect score, followed by the Mediterranean and Pescatarian diets. The portfolio diet was excluded from the evaluation “because it is not particularly common,” she said.
Although the portfolio diet is not as well known as the DASH and Mediterranean diets, Glenn has pointed out that there are significant overlaps, since they all emphasize eating whole grains, fruits, vegetables, vegetable proteins, nuts and vegetable oils. However, the portfolio diet proposes to reduce animal proteins more than other dietary patterns.
Petersen thinks the portfolio diet is a good option for those who want to follow a vegan or vegetarian diet that offers heart health benefits. “It’s not an all or nothing approach. “You can take your own diet and make small changes to get cardiovascular benefits,” Glenn said. “You also don’t have to follow it like a strict vegan or vegetarian diet to see benefits, but the more foods (from the portfolio diet) you eat, the greater the protection from heart disease risk, as we saw in the current study. We have to spread the word,” concludes the researcher.
Source: American Heart Association
