Is your “healthy” diet really healthy?
More stories from Ally Dahncke
A food study conducted by The Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology found that current nutrition standards might not be accurate. Odd findings appeared in the study that contradicts what we were lead to believe, but it is not anything serious enough to worry about.
“The Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study followed the diet and health histories of 135,335 people between the ages of 35 to 70 for seven years. The participants in the study live in 18 countries,” stated mnn.com.
The researchers studied the effect of dietary nutrients on blood lipids and blood pressure which are risk factors for cardiovascular disease, according to thelancet.com.
“The researchers found that a diet rich in fruits and veggies are good for you; those who ate them in the study had a lower incidence of heart disease and death. They also noted that a higher intake of these foods was associated with a lower risk for death and disease,” reported mnn.com.
An interesting observation appeared in the study. Researchers found that participants who had the highest consumption of fat had the lowest overall risk for cardiovascular disease and mortality. People in the U.S. have been programmed to associate fat with cardiovascular disease, according to foodeducator.com.
Researchers also found that those in the study with a high protein intake had lower blood pressure compared to those who had high fat, saturated fatty acid, and carbohydrate intakes, thelancet.com reported.
The study was not like any other due to its size which helped the results remain unbiased since “Americans and many Europeans tend to eat more than the rest of the world. So in nutrition studies, it can be difficult to understand whether a certain nutrient is bad for health or if the participants just ate too much of it. Also, by including participants from China and India, researchers were able to look at a diet that is the polar opposite of the American diet,” stated foodeducator.com.
The best diet is a balanced diet with different foods that do not exclude any food groups.