The New York Times : declared in Mediterranean Diet vs. Statins to Prevent Heart Attack and Stroke?

Both the Mediterranean diet and statins can be effective in helping to lower the risk of potentially fatal complications of heart disease. How does the Mediterranean diet stack up against statins in preventing heart attacks and strokes? A large and rigorous study published in 2013, for example, found that switching to a Mediterranean diet prevented about 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease in people at high risk. So, that's a great starting point."If cholesterol numbers remain high despite a heart-healthy diet, statins or other medical treatments can be added, he said. "Quantitatively, you get more mileage from optimal exercise and diet than statins, so it's not one or the other: Everybody needs the diet and exercise, and some people, despite that, will still need statins.

10 Foods and Their Impact on a Heart Healthy Diet

Getty ImagesTheir report boiled down nicely what people should and shouldn't eat in order to dramatically lower their risk of heart disease. Micha's team found that in 2012, more than 700,000 Americans died of heart disease, stroke or diabetes. They used published studies on the positives and negatives of each of the 10 foods to determine just how much each one contributes to the risk of death from heart disease. What they found is that eating too much sodium (more than 2,000 mg a day) accounted for 9.5 percent of the deaths. The health of volunteers (all were asked to keep records of what they ate in real time) was monitored for years.


Each of these factors accounted for between 6 percent and 9 percent of deaths from heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The researchers used data from multiple national sources to examine deaths from cardiometabolic diseases -- heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes -- in 2012, and the role that diet may have played. "Optimal" intake of foods and nutrients was based on levels associated with lower disease risk in studies and clinical trials. Using available studies and clinical trials, researchers identified 10 dietary factors with the strongest evidence of a protective or harmful association with death due to "cardiometabolic" disease. Optimal intake "could be modestly lower or higher," she explained.



collected by :Lucy William