Diets and the Heart. So Many to Choose from, but Which Work?

Excerpt

The importance of diet for cardiovascular protection as related to life-style has already been evaluated [1]. Yet the choice of diet is often perplexing. Diets such as those chosen to lose weight need to be disguised from dietary patterns of eating. There are only two evidence based dietary patterns of eating, namely the Mediterranean and the new Atkins diet [2, 3]. These were both evaluated in a 2 year Israeli study with the conclusion that each had a contribution, the Mediterranean diet for improving mortality when tested over 5 years, and the New Atkins diet for improving weight loss when tested over 2 years [2, 3]. Of these, the Mediterranean dietary pattern has in its favour improved mortality over 5 years, whereas both the Mediterranean pattern and the New Atkins diet when assessed over 2 years. …