Eating to ease inflammation

(This article was first printed in the September 2004 issue of the Harvard Heart Letter. For more information or to order, please go to http://www.health.harvard.edu/heart.)

Inflammation, so the thinking goes, lights a fire under heart disease by fueling atherosclerosis, the process that gives rise to cholesterol-clogged arteries. Can you cool it? Try a Mediterranean-type diet, suggests a report in the July 7, 2004Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

As part of a large study of heart disease risk factors in Greece, nearly 3,000 healthy residents of Attica, the province that includes Athens, detailed their eating habits and gave blood samples. Those who most closely followed a traditional Mediterranean diet had lower blood levels of substances that signal inflammation, including C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, and fibrinogen, as well as fewer white blood cells than those who didn’t. Because the researchers didn’t follow the volunteers’ health over time, they couldn’t tell if those with less inflammation were also less likely to develop heart disease.

There’s really no such thing as the Mediterranean diet. More than a dozen countries border the Mediterranean Sea, each with distinct foods and dietary habits. In general, though, it means eating plenty of plant foods (fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, and nuts), using olive oil or other unsaturated fats for cooking, eating more fish and poultry and less red meat, and drinking wine with meals, as represented in the pyramid below.

Following a Mediterranean-type diet doesn’t guarantee freedom from heart disease, although several studies show strong connections between this eating pattern and lower rates of heart attacks and deaths from heart disease. That said, these results are in line with the near-incontrovertible evidence that healthy eating is one route by which you can steer clear of heart disease or avoid future problems.

(This article was first printed in the September 2004 issue of the Harvard Heart Letter. For more information or to order, please go to http://www.health.harvard.edu/heart.)

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