Sep 18: While Mediterranean diet with fruits, vegetables and lean proteins and a glass or two of red wine has been known to benefit the heart has been recommended for 3 decades, but a new Study published by the Journal of American College of Cardiology (JACC) last week, recommends an improved version that stresses more fish and sea-food and intermittent fasting while limiting red wine to a maximum of two glasses a day, writes Subhash Arora who has been recommending this limit for 15 years.
While there's no dearth of diet plans that recommend one-size-fits-all diet plans, researchers have claimed that certain diets may offer more benefits than the others. A recent Study investigating an ideal diet for heart and general health, claims that a combination of two popular diets does the job even better than just the Mediterranean diet which has known to be beneficial since at least 1990 when it was brought out in a TV Programme 60 Minutes.
Published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), on 12 September, it says that people who eat Pesco-Mediterranean diet and following intermittent fasting for 12-15 hours, are healthier.
A Pesco-Mediterranean diet is essentially the same as Mediterranean diet with focus on fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) and occasional addition of lean proteins like fish and chicken, but with more stress on fish and sea-foods. It is even more beneficial when one also practices intermittent fasting of at least 12 hours.
“We have a lot of first level scientific evidence showing that this really makes a difference in your cardiovascular health, in all-cause mortality, in preventing dementia, preventing diabetes and maintaining a healthy weight,” said Dr. James O’Keefe, Preventative Cardiologist at St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, who was the lead author of the research.
Dr. O’Keefe recommends intermittent fasting as part of the diet. “When you don’t consume calories for at least 12 hours, the inflammation starts going down,” O’Keefe said. “It’s not as hard as it sounds, because when you follow this kind of diet with low sugar, low refined carbohydrates and high vegetable content and high fat. It changes your hormones around so you’re less hungry and you sleep better,” he says, clarifying that a daily time-restricted eating window of 8 to 12 h is a central component of this diet.
Dr. O’Keefe recommends red wine should be limited to one glass a day for women and up to two for men. And he advises to drink lots of water. He says it’s also best to avoid artificial sweeteners and added sugars because they can raise insulin levels.
This diet is hypothetical and needs prospective and further randomized studies to document its efficacy. Dr. O’Keefe validates the advice and recommendation of delWine for men to drink up to 2 glasses of wine (125 mL) having alcohol by volume of 13% and women to restrict it to one glass a day and take folate regularly. Please discuss with an evolved nutritionist the diet Plan as suggested by the Study.
Subhash Arora
Pescatarian is primarily a vegetarian who eats fish and other sea-foods just like a Vinotaler (a term coined by me) refers to a teetotaler who drinks only wine as an alcoholic product-editor)
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