Mediterranean and low-fat diets could lower risk of death and heart attacks

By Alice Clifford via SWNS

Mediterranean and low-fat diets could lower the risk of death and heart attacks among people at high risk of cardiovascular disease, according to a new study.

The Med diet could also reduce the risk of stroke, say scientists.

The diet is high in vegetables, nuts, grains, fruits, legumes and fish, but low in meat, dairy and saturated fats.

According to NHS England: "Cardiovascular disease affects around seven million people in the UK and is a significant cause of disability and death."

Current guidelines recommend various dietary programmes for patients who are more at risk of cardiovascular disease but often rely on low-certainty evidence from non-randomized studies.

To address this gap in information, researchers trawled databases from randomized trials.

These trials looked at the impact of dietary programmes on preventing death and major cardiovascular events in patients at increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

They studied 40 trials involving just over 35,500 participants.

Each person was followed on average for three years across seven dietary programmes.

These diets included low-fat, Mediterranean, very low-fat, modified fat and combined low-fat and low sodium.

They also looked at the Ornish diet which is a vegetarian diet low in fat, animal protein and refined sugars.

The final programme was the Pritikin diet, a low-fat and high-fiber diet.

The study found that Mediterranean dietary programmes were better than minimal intervention at preventing untimely deaths among those at intermediate risk of cardiovascular disease.

They found that there were 17 fewer deaths and non-fatal heart attacks per 1,000 people over five years.

There were also seven fewer per 1,000 people who suffered from a stroke on this diet. Low-fat programmes also significantly reduced the risk of death.

Compared to those not on the diet there were nine fewer deaths per 1,000 people. There were also seven fewer per 1,000 people who suffered a non-fatal heart attack.

There were no convincing differences between Mediterranean and low-fat programmes for mortality or non-fatal heart attack.

For patients at a high risk of cardiovascular disease, there were 36 fewer all-cause deaths per 1,000 and 39 fewer cardiovascular deaths per 1,000 among those who followed the Mediterranean dietary programme over five years.

The five other dietary programmes generally had little or no benefit compared with minimal intervention.

Author Dr. Bradley Johnston from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University concluded that Mediterranean and low-fat diets "probably reduce the risk of mortality and non-fatal myocardial infarction in people at increased cardiovascular risk.”

The study was published in the British Medical Journal.