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Diet
Equal to Drugs
in Lowering Cholesterol
NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) - A diet rich in fruits, vegetables and
nuts may reduce cholesterol levels and consequently lower the
risk of heart disease as effectively as state-of-the-art drug
therapy, results of a recent study reveal.
However, the
diet contains three to four times more fiber--mostly from leafy
vegetables--than the traditional Western diet and may be difficult
to adhere to.
``A significant
percentage of adults in the Western world are candidates for cholesterol-lowering
drugs,'' according to lead study author Dr. David J. A. Jenkins
of the University of Toronto in Canada. ``Possibly a better way
forward, nutritionally and environmentally, is to retrace our
steps to the original diet of humans and incorporate more plant
foods in today's diets,'' he said in a statement.
The researchers
investigated the effects of three diets on 10 healthy individuals.
Each person followed a vegetarian diet rich in fruits, vegetables
and nuts containing 100 grams of fiber; a diet of mostly cereals
and legumes, containing 40 grams of fiber; and a low-fat diet
that contained 25 grams of fiber, for 2 weeks.
Nutrition
guidelines recommend that most people consume 25 to 35 grams of
fiber daily. Each diet was separated by 9 months and contained
about 2,500 calories a day, according to the report in the April
issue of Metabolism.
After just
1 week, individuals on the high-fiber diet lowered total cholesterol
by about 20% and reduced LDL (''bad'') cholesterol by about 30%.
``The magnitude
of this reduction is equivalent to the effects of a statin--the
standard drug therapy for high cholesterol,'' Jenkins stated.
The other
diets led to more modest reductions in cholesterol, possibly because
they contained fewer nuts than the high-fiber diet, he said. This
diet contained an average of 67 grams of nuts daily.
``The diet
of our early ancestors may not be considered compatible with contemporary
lifestyles, but our results show that substituting some of its
components in the common low-fibre, high-fat diet can have a long-term
impact on cardiovascular health,'' Jenkins stated.
SOURCE:
Metabolism April 2001.
Reference
Source 89
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