Boca doc: lifestyle key to heart recommendations; also helps obesity problem
Published Thursday, June 29, 2006
by John Johnston
Adding plenty of exercise to a heart-healthy diet will decrease your odds of developing cardiovascular disease, according to new guidelines from the American Heart Association (AHA).
The new guidelines have the added feature of also aiding another literally growing American issue - obesity and its related problems, according to Boca Raton cardiologist Dr. Stephen Babic.
"Everyone is concerned about obesity," he told The Boca Raton News, "and these guidelines help, not only the heart, but also with obesity."
A by-product of obesity, he continued, can become insulin resistant diabetes, the incidence of which goes down when weight goes down.
The diet and lifestyle recommendations come in the new AHA diet and lifestyle recommendations published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. According to Palm Beach County AHA Director Kristen Cruz, these recommendations replace guidelines issued in 2000, and now recommend:
· Further reducing saturated and trans fatty acids in the diet.
· Minimizing the intake of food and beverages with added sugars.
· Emphasizing physical activity and weight control.
· Eating a diet rich in vegetables, fruits and whole-grain foods.
· Avoiding use of and exposure to tobacco products.
· Achieving and maintaining healthy cholesterol, blood pressure and blood glucose levels.
"The previous recommendations stressed a healthy dietary pattern; the new ones broaden that concept to include the importance of a healthy lifestyle pattern. The two go together - they should be inseparable," said Alice Lichtenstein, D.Sc., chair of the American Heart Association's Nutrition Committee and Gershoff professor of nutrition science and policy at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, at Tufts University in Boston.
"The key message of the recommendations is to focus on long-term, permanent changes in how we eat and live. The best way to lower cardiovascular risk is to combine physical activity with heart-healthy eating habits, coupled with weight control and avoiding tobacco products," Lichtenstein said.
The association continues to emphasize achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight, but is putting more emphasis on balancing the number of calories consumed with the number of calories burned. More emphasis is put on food preparation methods that avoid adding saturated fat, sugar or salt and portion size control.
Practical Advice
A panel of nutrition and cardiovascular disease experts for the new American Heart Association recommendations reviewed more than 90 scientific publications. Besides the goals and recommendations, the statement has new sections with practical information for consumers such as knowing your caloric needs, food preparation tips and some examples of dietary patterns consistent with the new recommendations.
As in the past, the recommendations also address special groups such as children, older adults, individuals with metabolic syndrome or chronic kidney disease and certain socioeconomic groups at high risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Most importantly, these new recommendations address a key challenge faced by increasing numbers of Americans: maintaining a healthy dietary pattern while eating more processed foods and food prepared outside the home.
Environmental factors strongly influence how Americans eat and exercise. Accordingly, a new feature of the 2006 American Heart Association Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations is a list of ways that practitioners, restaurants, the food industry, schools and local governments can help the general public adopt these recommendations. Examples include displaying caloric content prominently on menus, reducing portion size, limiting trans fatty acids and using low-saturated-fatty-acid oils in food preparation.
Another major change in the dietary recommendations is a lower goal for saturated fat - from less than 10 percent to less than 7 percent - and establishing a goal for trans fatty acids of less than 1 percent of total calories.
"The point is not to calculate the amount of saturated and trans-fatty acids in the diet, but to choose foods that minimize your intake. For example, you can choose leaner cuts of meat and lower-fat dairy products, smaller serving sizes, avoid foods made with hydrogenated fat and include more fruits, vegetables, vegetarian options and fish in the diet," Lichtenstein said.
Saturated fatty-acids occur naturally in foods from animals, such as meat and dairy products, and tropical oils such as coconut and palm oil.
Trans-fatty acids - which are now required to be shown on the Nutrition Facts panel of packaged foods - are commonly found in commercially baked and fried foods, such as crackers, French fries, cakes, pies, bread and cookies.
"Almost anyone can make changes in how they eat and move their bodies to bring themselves closer to the recommended goals. The changes can be small but need to be maintained. In no way are we saying people will have to give up all the things they enjoy; they just may have to make a few modifications in their current habits," Lichtenstein said.
Diet and Lifestyle
"A good first step to improve your diet and lifestyle - start paying attention to portion size and liquid calories, such as those in soft drinks, fruit drinks, fruit juices and alcoholic beverages. The next step is to try to get at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day," Lichtenstein said. "It does not have to be done all at once - accumulating 30 minutes throughout the day is fine - and, of course, more is better. No one is too old or too out of shape to make small changes to increase physical activity."
The association also urges industry to gradually reduce the salt and sugar content of processed foods and to increase the proportion of whole grains compared to white flour in baked goods, among other recommendations, according to Cruz.
For a free brochure about the new recommendations called "Making Healthy Food and Lifestyle Choices: Our Guide for American Adults," visit
www.americanheart.org or call 1-800-AHA-USA1.
Article