Mediterranean Diet Linked to Reduced Risk of Heart Disease and Death in Women
Eating food like they do in Mediterranean countries can decrease the chances of a woman having heart disease and passing away by almost 25%, according to new research published in the journal Heart. The researchers concluded that more studies should be done about female heart health specifically.
More than one third of deaths caused by illnesses related to the heart and blood vessels is seen in women all over the world. Having a healthy diet is really important for preventing this type of disease. However, most studies about this have not used enough female participants or don’t even show results based on gender. Furthermore, there aren’t any different guidelines that tell us how best to lower the risk of getting such a disease for men and women especially.
The researchers wanted to collect more research data in order to help decide on different recommendations for women’s heart health and their chances of survival. To do this, they looked through multiple databases to search for studies that showed how eating a Mediterranean diet could affect these things.
The Mediterranean diet is based on eating lots of whole grains, vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, and olive oil; eating fish/shellfish moderately; having a low to moderate amount of wine; and not having too much red/processed meats, dairy products, animal fat, or processed foods.
For this study, researchers looked at 190 studies that were published between 2003 and 2021. Eventually they chose sixteen studies for their results.
Researchers did lots of research in the United States and Europe which studied around 700,000 women for about 12 and a half years. The results showed that if women ate like people from the Mediterranean area, their chances of having any heart disease would be reduced by 24%, and the chance of dying from anything would lower by 23%.
When people closely followed a Mediterranean diet, their risk of getting coronary heart disease was 25% lower and even their risk of stroke was lower than those who followed the diet less closely. The analysis did not change in any way when individual studies were taken out. This means that there is a positive link between eating the Mediterranean diet and reducing cardiovascular diseases and deaths in women.
The researchers know that their findings are not perfect, because the studies they looked at were just observations and people had to answer questions about what foods they ate. They also didn’t look into other things that might affect the results.
However, they think that how a Mediterranean diet can lower inflammation and risk of heart problems by increasing antioxidants and beneficial bacteria in the gut could explain why these issues were connected.
Experts suggest that things like polyphenols, nitrates, omega-3 fatty acids, extra fiber and lower glycaemic load from the Mediterranean diet may have a helpful effect on our heart health. However, it is not clear why this diet has an even more positive effect on some people than others. This highlights the fact that we need to look into the differences between males and females when it comes to heart health.
There are certain things which can make women more likely to get a heart disease, like menopause that comes early or having conditions like pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes. It might be helpful to eat a Mediterranean diet to reduce the risk of getting a heart disease, but it might work differently in women compared with men.
This research is called “Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Women with a Mediterranean Diet: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” written by Anushriya Pant, Sarah Gribbin, Daniel McIntyre, Ritu Trivedi, Simone Marschner, Liliana Laranjo, Mamas A Mamas, Victoria Flood, Clara K Chow and Sarah Zaman. It was published on the 14th of March 2023 in Heart publication.
This research looks into how well a Mediterranean diet can help people deal with problems related to Diabetic Retinopathy when combined with dyslipidemia.
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