The Deadly Western DietBy Peter Liu [Nutrition & Diet]
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What kind of diet causes 30 per cent of heart attacks around the world? Peter Liu looks at our unhealthy eating habits.  If asked whether there was any single thing that united every person regardless of country or race, would heart attacks top your list? While hoping that the answer is no, we know that our civilization has advanced far enough to admit that the real answer is a begrudging yes. There are many varied risks for heart disease, but lately, dietary patterns have been to blame, especially the fatty, salty, deep-fried diet that originated in North America. Now that popular North American food chains have spread all over the world, that particular dietary pattern is wreaking fatty havoc on a global scale too.The Interheart Study The Interheart study was a major Canadian-led study to identify and consolidate information about similar risk factors linked to heart attacks across race and region several years ago. The program was a standardized case control study that consisted of screening patients experiencing a first heart attack. Two hundred sixty-two centres in 52 countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, North America and South America participated. Participants were given a questionnaire about their demographics, socioeconomic status, lifestyle and medical history, along with a standard physical and blood sample. In total, there were approximately 15,000 case studies, along with the same number of control cases without history of heart disease, but matching in age and sex. At the beginning of the study, researchers had guessed that ethnicity and country origin would determine the risk factors they found. Variations of links between risk factors and heart attacks were calculated according to region, ethnicity, age and gender in order to gauge the impact of the risk factors against the individual as well as the entire population. In total, nine major risk factors were found to significantly increase the risk of heart attacks and heart disease: smoking, lipids, hypertension, dietary choice, physical activity, alcohol consumption, diabetes, obesity and psychosocial factors. Most significantly, those factors were the same across the world and researchers believe they have now found every major cause that is linked to heart attack cases, regardless of country or ethnicity. Smoking, lipids, hypertension, diabetes and obesity were the five particular factors that were found to account for 80 per cent of the risk to widespread populations. Dietary Risk Reduction With the entirety of heart attack risk factors identified, a new study has been released with data based on the Interheart study to further research on heart attack prevention. An updated Interheart study on dietary patterns and heart attack prevention led by Dr. Salim Yusuf, a professor of medicine at McMaster University, was published in the October issue of the journal Circulation. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 16,000 cases from 52 countries, with 5,561 first time heart attack patient cases and 10,646 control patient cases with no history of heart disease, chest pains, hypertension, diabetes or high cholesterol. Study participants were at a mean age between 53 and 57, kept diaries on dietary choices between February 1999 and March 2003, had blood samples taken and filled out dietary risk questionnaires. The questionnaire included questions about 19 different food groups including desserts, leafy greens, dairy products and pickled foods. |
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