http://www.reutershealth.com/archive...08elin003.html
Good carbs, good fats best for reducing heart risk
Last Updated: 2006-11-08 17:00:27 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Anne Harding
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The quality of the food in your diet is
more important than the quantity of carbohydrates or fat you're
eating
in terms of preventing heart disease, Harvard researchers report.
"We should be able to combine the good features of low fat diets and
low carbohydrate diets and avoid the bad features of those diets,"
Dr.
Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, the
study's
lead author, told Reuters Health.
"In the past when we recommended low fat, high carbohydrate diets we
emphasized reducing fat. We usually don't talk about the quality of
carbohydrates," he added.
Carbohydrates are considered poor quality if they are digested
rapidly
and cause a relatively speedy rise in blood sugar, for example
sugared
sodas or white bread. Higher quality carbs such as whole grains and
vegetables are generally higher in fiber, take longer to digest and
produce a slower, steadier blood sugar increase.
As reported in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, Hu and
his
team originally set out to assess the safety of low-carb diets, which
are still popular for weight loss. They analyzed data on nutrition
from 82,802 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study over a
20-year period. Information on the participants' diet was gathered
every two to four years, so the study was able to capture changes in
diet over time.
The percentage of calories a woman got from fats, carbohydrates or
proteins had no influence on her heart disease risk, the researchers
found. However, women who got more of their calories from healthier
sources of protein, such as tofu, beans and whole-grain foods, as
well
as healthy fats like olive oil, were 30% less likely to develop heart
disease over the course of the study.
Also, women who ate diets with the highest glycemic load -- meaning
they ate more poor-quality carbs -- had a nearly doubled risk of
heart
disease.
Based on the findings, Hu advised, "We should definitely reduce the
glycemic load of our diet and then use healthy sorts of fats instead
of saturated fats and trans-fats and also consume healthy sorts of
protein rather than animal protein." While people don't need to avoid
animal protein entirely, he added, they should stick to healthier
sources like fish and poultry.
SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine, November 9, 2006.
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Good carbs, good fats best for reducing heart risk 
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