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For the past few years, the scientific realm has shifted its focus on the way our diet affects our mental and physical health. Several studies have suggested that consuming certain foods for a long period can improve or deteriorate the health of people. In other words, what you eat can make or break your health. In fact, a recent study compared two cultural diets 'Mediterranean' and 'Southern' US diet and associated health risks. The researchers studied how these diets affect your heart health and lead to problems such as sudden cardiac death.
While the Mediterranean diet is considered healthy, the southern diet is demonstrated as the opposite in terms of health. For the unversed, the Mediterranean diet is a way of eating in which people generally include healthy plant foods and not so much animal foods, apart from fish and seafood. On the other hand, the Southern diet includes fried meals, eggs, organ meats (such as liver or giblets), processed meats (such as deli meat, bacon, and hotdogs), added fats, and sugar-sweetened drinks.
As per the data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sudden cardiac death is a common cause of mortality, accounting for almost 367,000 fatalities in the US in 2016. As the name suggests, sudden cardiac death is an unexpected death caused by loss of heart function - when the heart abruptly stops beating. The study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that consuming a Southern-style diet may elevate the risk of getting a sudden cardiac death.
According to the study, people who consume a consistent diet of traditional Southern foods are 46 per cent more likely to die from sudden cardiac death than those who did not eat the southern diet.
However, it was found that those who ate the strict, traditional Mediterranean diet the most had a 26 per cent lower risk of sudden cardiac mortality than those who ate the Mediterranean diet occasionally. However, this was true only for those who had no prior history of coronary heart disease before the research began.
For the study, researchers followed 21,000 people aged 45 and older from 2003 and 2007, from an ongoing national research project called Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS). The goal of this study was to see if there were any regional or racial variations in stroke prevalence. Sixty-six per cent of the participants were women, 33 per cent were Black adults, and 56 per cent lived in the southeastern United States. Following that, participants were given a food questionnaire to assess their diet type and frequency of food consumption, as well as how often and in what quantities they had consumed 110 different food items in the preceding year.
First, the answers were utilised to create a Mediterranean diet score based on particular food groups considered healthy or unhealthy, as well as a Southern-style eating pattern. Other food eating habits were considered by the researchers. This included a "sweets" eating pattern that included foods with added sugars; a "convenience" eating pattern that included easy-to-make foods like mixed dishes; a "plant-based" eating pattern; and an "alcohol and salad" eating pattern that included beer, wine, and liquor as well as green leafy vegetables, tomatoes and salad dressing.
Over 400 unexpected cardiac deaths occurred among the 21,000 research participants after an average of ten years of checking for cardiovascular disease events every six months. The study also found that those who ate a Southern-style diet the most frequently had a 46 per cent higher risk of sudden cardiac mortality than those who ate it the least frequently.
Furthermore, individuals who adhered to the traditional Mediterranean diet the most had a 26% reduced risk of sudden cardiac mortality than those who did not. These findings back up the idea that a healthy diet can help avoid deadly cardiovascular disease, and they should urge us all to include a healthier diet in our daily routines.
Preliminary studies have suggested that what you eat has a direct impact on the organs of your body, including your heart. The findings reaffirm earlier findings of the relevance of dietary choices and consumption habits. Future studies on the hazards linked with food habits should consider such patterns of variance. Although this was observational research, the findings imply that nutrition may be a modifiable risk factor for sudden cardiac death, and therefore diet is a risk factor over which we have some control.
Study authors believe that the results of this observational study show that diet may be a modifiable risk factor for sudden cardiac death, and therefore diet is a risk factor over which we have some control. People should follow a Mediterranean diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish, and low in fried meals, organ meats and processed meat (which are a part of the Southern dietary pattern).
Despite the high sample size, regional variety, and inclusion of minorities, the current study has certain limitations, including the data collecting technique, which is based on a single self-reported questionnaire that depends on participant recollection and may be inaccurate. As a result, the strength of relationships may be reduced. Hence, more studies are required to reach a concrete conclusion.
The kind of foods you should include in a Mediterranean diet is controversial, because of their variations. However, the basic foods you can include in your diet:
You should avoid these when on a Mediterranean diet: