Mediterranean diet good for heart function

Even the ones at risk for heart disease could really benefit from a low-fat Mediterranean-type diet that includes nuts, fish, produce and olive oil, many United States researchers have already found. Study author Dr. Jun Dai, an assistant professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Indiana University in Bloomington, utilized information from the Emory Twins Heart Study and discovered that men who ate a Mediterranean-style diet had a bigger heart rate
variability — differences in the duration interval within heartbeats during everyday life — than individuals ingesting a Western-type diet high in red meat and fat.

“Heart rate variance is a risk factor for sudden death, and coronary artery disease,” Dr. Jun Dai noted. Dr. Jun Dai and his co-workers related dietary information from a survey with cardiac information results from 276 fraternal and identicial male twins and evaluated every individual on how evenly his or her food intake compared with the Mediterranean diet — the higher the evaluation, the greater the Mediterranean-type diet, which is higher in fruits, fish, vegetables, nuts, legumes, olive oil, cereals and moderate alcohol intake.

The study, that was written in the Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, discovered calculations of heart rate variance, utilizing a Holter Monitor, found that the higher an individual’s Mediterranean diet evaluation, the more variance of the heart beat-to-beat time interval which was ten percent to fifty-eight percent. “The discoveries can’t be generalized to ethnic groups or women because ninety-four percent of individuals were non-Hispanic caucasion men,” Dr. Jun Dai had reported.