Healthy Heart Program Updates
In this Issue
The 29th Lillian Fountain Smith Conference for Nutrition Educators was again a very informative event including the new frontiers of nutrition and genetics. However, it does appear that money to determine your genetic make-up and personalizing your diet is premature. One speaker noted that upon sending in a swab from his daughter's cheek 12 different labs came back with 12 different patterns including the wrong sex! So, continue eating a heart healthy diet with lots of color and don't spend money on these tests! An article in this issue of Healthy Heart Beats will expand upon nutrigenomics and shed some light to those who are reading this for the first time.
Supporting lifestyle approaches are several recent reports in the scientific literature documenting lifestyle as a very important approach to cardiovascular health. As an example, pre-diabetes more than doubles risk of heart disease death according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The risk of dying from heart disease increases with the earliest sign that the body is having trouble metabolizing glucose (blood sugar). In the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study, participants with impaired fasting glucose, a condition considered pre-diabetes, were more than twice as likely to die of cardiovascular disease after five years. Moreover, diabetes and pre-diabetes accounted for 65 percent of all heart disease deaths in the study of 10,429 Australians.
This study confirms the clinical importance of pre-diabetes, and suggests the need to target glucose abnormalities with lifestyle interventions (diet and exercise) to prevent these from progressing to pre-diabetes and diabetes," said Elizabeth L.M. Barr, M.P.H., lead author of the study at the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia. Additionally, eating a low salt diet was given added support with research conducted at Brigham and Women's Hospital and reported in the British Medical Journal. Sodium has long been linked to high blood pressure but directly linking salt to heart disease has been less conclusive.
However, scientists followed up with participants in two previous salt reduction studies and found significant reductions in blood pressure among people who reduced their salt intake and participated in dietary counseling and education. The reduction in cardiovascular events was 25% -30% lower in those eating a low-salt diet when compared to controls. Sodium may reduce the flexibility of blood vessels and toughen heart cells. This 10-year follow-up study provides the strongest evidence that lowering salt seems to work in reducing blood pressure.
The Dietary Guidelines recommends reducing salt to 2000 mg/day for those with heart disease and is a wise intake for most people. Dietary choices of less processed meats and processed foods and reading labels remains a key strategy. Fruits and vegetables are naturally low in salt, so enjoying such food with your summer barbecues is a good strategy and puts a lot of color on the plate.
Enjoy summertime and the Colorado outdoors and follow our suggestions for eating healthfully in the "Dining a la Health" section. Eat well and stay active-lifestyle matters!
Jennifer Anderson, Ph.D., R.D.
Food and Nutrition Extension Specialist
Shirley Perryman, M.S., R.D.
Extension Specialist
Go to Table of Contents for this issue
Go to top of this page.
Updated Tuesday, September 25, 2007.
|
