Minor Changes in Diet May Help Reduce Cardiovascular Disease Risk
Exchanging some foods with improved fat quality reduced LDL and total cholesterol.
Making small tweaks in the daily diet may reduce therisk of cardiovascular diseaseby 30%, findings from a new study suggest.
In a study published in theBritish Journal of Nutrition, researchers found that exchanging a few regular-consumed foods with improved fat quality in the diet for 8 weeks reduced the serum total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol by 9% and 11%, respectively. The goal of the double-blind, controlled, randomized study was to examine the effects that exchanging few commercially regularly-consumed key food items with improved fat quality had on total cholesterol, LDL-C, and inflammatory markers.
Researchers enrolled 115 moderately hypercholesterolemic non-statin treated adults whose ages ranged from 25- to 70-years-old. Participants were randomized to either an experimental diet group (Ex-diet group) or control diet group (C-diet group) for a duration of 8 weeks using different food times with various fatty acid compositions.
Most of the saturated fatty acids were replaced with n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids. The results of the study showed that serum total cholesterol and LDL-C were reduced after 8 weeks in the Ex-diet group compared with the C-diet group, with a difference in change at the end of the study of -9% and -11%.
No differences were seen in plasma level changes for inflammatory markers between the groups.
The authors noted that exchanging few regularly-consumed food products with improved fat quality reduces the total cholesterol, with no negative effect on inflammatory marker levels.
