People have been arguing for years over what kinds of foods and dietary patterns are best for health, with many studies finding that a Mediterranean style diet is best for health. Another recent study found that a Mediterranean-style diet rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, whole grains, fish, and dairy is best for heart health when compared to other diets.
The study of 3042 Greek adults found that those following a plant-based style diet (basically a Mediterranean-style diet) had a 26% lower risk of developing heart disease over a 20 year period, when compared to either a Western diet rich in processed meat and ultra-processed foods, or to a high-calorie, but low-white-meat dietary pattern.
The high calorie, low white-meat diet seemed especially unhealthy. They also found that physical activity reduced heart disease (cardiovascular disease) risk, but smoking increased it.
Physical activity reduced CVD risk, while smoking increased it.
Excerpts from Medical News: Plant-based Mediterranean-style diet cuts heart disease risk by 26%
A recent European Journal of Nutrition study examined common dietary patterns in a Mediterranean cohort and assessed their long-term associations with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and outcomes.
Poor dietary habits, especially inadequate consumption of nutrient-dense foods, remain a leading modifiable risk factor.
The ATTICA Study is a 20-year prospective cohort of 3,042 healthy adults from Attica, Greece, recruited by stratified random sampling. Follow-up assessments at 5, 10, and 20 years maintained high participation, with in-person evaluations for survivors and cause of death recorded for deceased participants. At 20 years, 1,988 participants had complete cardiovascular data. Individuals lost to follow-up tended to have lower socioeconomic status.
Baseline assessments included questionnaires, physical exams, and blood tests. Primary endpoints were fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular events, with non-CVD deaths also tracked for competing risk calculations.
Analyses of 3,042 participants revealed three distinct dietary patterns, which together explained nearly half of the variation in dietary habits. The first pattern was plant-based and sustainable, characterized by higher intakes of vegetables, fruits, plant proteins (legumes and nuts), grains, fish, seafood, and dairy. The second was a Western dietary pattern, high in red meat, potatoes, sweets, and eggs, reflecting greater reliance on animal-based and processed foods. The third pattern showed higher energy intake than metabolic needs and less white meat consumption. Participants were grouped by their level of adherence to each pattern.
During 20 years of follow-up, 36% of participants experienced a cardiovascular event, with fatal events being rare. Lower adherence to the plant-based pattern or higher adherence to the high-calorie, low-white-meat pattern was associated with increased lifetime cardiovascular risk.
After adjusting for confounders, advanced statistical models showed that greater adherence to a plant-based, sustainable dietary pattern was associated with a significantly lower risk of CVD over 20 years. Specifically, each one-standard-deviation increase in adherence to the pattern was associated with a 26% lower hazard of developing CVD over 20 years.
Further analysis confirmed that greater adherence to the high-calorie, low-white-meat dietary pattern increased lifetime CVD risk and CVD burden, as measured by disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Physical activity reduced CVD risk, while smoking increased it. Excluding early CVD cases did not change these findings, confirming their robustness.