Heart Disease
Metabolic syndrome is a group of risk factors, including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol levels, and fat in the midsection that increase one's risk of heart disease and diabetes. Diet, exercise, and medications have been shown to improve metabolic syndrome and lower the risk of these complications.Currently a study called Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea (PREDIMEDD) has enrolled 9000 high-risk participants aged 55 to 80 years who are assigned to one of three interventions: Mediterranean diet with the provision of 1 L/week of virgin olive oil, Mediterranean diet with 30 g/day of mixed nuts, or a low-fat diet. This is a long-term, multi-center, randomized controlled clinical trial is designed to assess the effects of the Mediterranean diet on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. (Primary prevention means the prevention of a disease that the person has never had before. Compare this to secondary prevention which means preventing a person who is known to have high cholesterol and blockages in the arteries from having a heart attack).Already data from 1224 participants in the study have shown that adhering to a Mediterranean diet supplemented with mixed nuts appears to provide benefit to individuals with the metabolic syndrome. Investigators observed a reduced prevalence of metabolic syndrome at one year among individuals adhering to the Mediterranean diet plus mixed nuts compared with those adhering to the traditional Mediterranean diet alone."The novelty of our findings is that a positive effect on metabolic syndrome was achieved by diet alone, in the absence of weight loss or increased energy expenditure," wrote lead investigator Dr Jordi Salas-Salvadó (University of Rovira i Virgili, Reus, Spain) and colleagues in the December 8/22, 2008 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. At the beginning of this study, nearly 62% of the participants met the criteria for metabolic syndrome. After one year the rate of metabolic syndrome dropped by nearly 13.7% in the patients assigned to the Mediterranean diet plus mixed nuts, 6.7% in those consuming a Mediterranean diet alone, and only 2% among those on the traditional low-fat diet. (Is there anyone left out there who still thinks the ill-advised, poorly researched, low-fat diet benefited anyone but the companies making carbohydrate-rich junk foods?)The beneficial effects of the diet happened without an increase in exercise habits, calories burned, or weight loss and add to the evidence that diets enriched with nuts do not induce weight gain, noted the authors. This author does note however that the amount of nuts was limited to 30 grams a day, which is one ounce or about 2 tablespoons). The researchers aren't sure yet what caused the improvement, but think that the diet plus mixed-nuts intervention may have positive effects on insulin resistance. Another possibility is the diet's effects on other factors such as oxidative stress and its related inflammation in the blood vessels. Previous analysis of the data have shown that the Mediterranean diet coupled with nuts protects against oxidative damage and reduces cardiovascular risk factors better than a low-fat diet.Source: Salas-Salvadó J, Fernández-Ballart J, Ros E, et al. Effect of a Mediterranean diet supplemented with nuts on metabolic syndrome status. Arch Intern Med 2008; 168: 2449-2458.Take care
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