Diets and supplements for cardiovascular health: Not

Long-term trials (277 of them) on 992,000 people have pretty much shown that adhering to special diets and taking supplements are of no benefit to your cardiovascular health:

• Low fat diets, including avoiding saturated fats, doesn’t help heart health. (I’ve been saying that all along.)
• Eating a Mediterranean diet is also not beneficial. What’s the big deal about “whole grains” anyhow?
• As a rule, supplements, including fish oil, vitamins, and antioxidants, don’t help much. Apparently folic acid helps people in China, where there’s a deficiency. On the down side, the study did find that taking calcium with vitamin D increases the risk of stroke, probably because these supplements increase clotting and hardening of the arteries.
• Reduced salt helped a few people, but was certainly not beneficial across the board. Some people are sensitive to salt; others are not. As doctor Eric Topol says, “maybe salt restriction really is beneficial for some, but we haven’t defined the people yet that would drive that.”

People are different. I have a friend who passes out if she eats strawberries; another who becomes ill by eating onions; another who is allergic to artichokes. Certain cancer medicines help some people but not others. All medicines affect people differently. Then there are your gut bacteria, which vary a great deal among people and which affect not only your physical health but also your mental health. Unfortunately, researchers haven’t nailed down ways to determine what foods or medicines are either beneficial or toxic to you specifically. For now you’re stuck with trial and error.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.