Five Foods That Hurt Your Heart
Avoid these to live longer
The best prescription for reducing your risk of heart disease is to exercise, eat right, and avoid smoking. If we want to delve a little deeper into the “eat right” part of this lifetime health prescription, we could divide certain foods into those that hurt the heart and those that help the heart.
In Five Foods That Help Your Heart, I introduced a handful of beneficial foods and food components. In this article, let’s get to the ones that appear to hurt the heart when consumed in larger amounts.
How red is your meat?
If you eat more red meat and processed meat, you have a modestly increased risk of death from heart disease, cancer, and all causes over a 10-year period, according to a recent report in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The men and women who ate the most red meat consumed a median of over 4 ounces per 2,000 calories per day compared to the people who ate the least red meat (0.7 ounce of red meat per 2,000 calories a day).
By just moving from the group who consumed the most red meat to the group who consumed the least, women could reduce their risk of cardiovascular mortality by 21% and men by 11%.
The people at the highest level of processed meat consumption took in a median of 1.6 ounces per 2,000 calories a day. Women eating processed meat in the lowest amounts enjoyed a 20% decrease in cardiovascular disease compared to those who ate the highest amounts.
What could be going on?
Red meat is a major source of saturated fat (one of the “bad” fats, particularly where heart disease is concerned), and a lower red meat intake could be improving the risk factors for heart disease, such as blood pressure and serum cholesterol levels.
Where does white meat fit into all of this? A higher intake of white meat seemed to decrease the risk for overall death slightly, according to this new report.
