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Highly Rated Diets To Support Heart Health
Eating healthy is an important goal for people looking to maintain or improve their physical health, particularly as it relates to the heart. With often conflicting information available online and via social media, it may be difficult or downright confusing to find the eating plan for you.
To help navigate the maze of information – and misinformation – experts assessed and scored the heart healthiness of several popular diets. Each diet was evaluated against the American Heart Association’s guidance for a heart-healthy eating pattern, which emphasizes eating a variety of vegetables and fruits, whole grains, lean proteins (including fish, low- or non-fat dairy and plant proteins), non-tropical plant oils and minimally processed foods; avoiding added sugars, salt and alcohol; and sticking to this guidance even when you’re eating away from home.
Diets received a rating between 0-100 and were ranked in tiers, with the resulting analysis published as an American Heart Association scientific statement in the journal “Circulation.”
“If implemented as intended, the top-tier dietary patterns align best with key features of heart-healthy eating and may be adapted to respect cultural practices, food preferences and budgets to enable people to eat this way for the long term,” said Christopher D. Gardner, Ph.D., FAHA, chair of the scientific statement writing committee and the Rehnborg Farquhar Professor of Medicine at Stanford University.
Tier 1: Highest-Rated Eating Plans (scores higher than 85)
The four patterns with the high- est ratings align best with hearthealthy guidance, are flexible and provide an array of healthy foods to choose from.
• DASH – With a perfect score by meeting all guidance, an eating pattern similar to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension plan emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, low-fat dairy, lean meats, poultry, fish and non-tropical oils. Nordic and Baltic diets are also examples of this eating pattern, which is low in salt, added sugar, alcohol, tropical oils and processed foods.
• Mediterranean – This pattern limits dairy while emphasizing fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, fatty fish and extravirgin olive oil. Because it includes moderate alcohol drinking, rather