Posted in Cardiovascular Health

The study, published Sept. 7 in The BMJ journal, included over 103,000 French adults who participated in a web-based nutrition study. The average age of participants at the start was 42 years and almost 80% were female. At the start of the study, people filled out questionnaires about their diet, health, physical activity, and personal information such as education, smoking status, and occupation. They also completed multiple dietary assessments at the beginning of the study and every 6 mon...

Flaxseed: What is it? Flaxseed is a grain that contains high levels of omega-3 fatty acids (so-called “good fat”), and fibre. For the study, 110 patients with high blood pressure and peripheral artery disease added 30 grams of milled flaxseed to their diet each day for six months. Results were compared to a similar group of people who added a placebo to their diets. The group with the flaxseed in their diet showed a measurable decrease in blood pressure. Lowering blood pressure...

Hundreds of studies support garlic’s cardiovascular benefits. Now a six-week clinical trial in Nutrients shows that a fermented form of garlic — aged black garlic extract — helps lower blood pressure in people with high cholesterol. Aged black garlic has long been a staple in Asian cuisine, where it’s considered a delicacy and loved for its jelly-like consistency. For the randomised, crossover, double-blind study, researchers gave subjects with moderate hyp...

The randomised controlled study included 138 men and women, aged 50-75 years, with BMI≥25 and 3 or more metabolic syndrome (MS) components (impaired fasting glucose, hypertension, central adiposity, hypertriglyceridemia, low HDL). The researchers randomly divided participants into 3 groups: one group (n=37) consumed the equivalent of 1 cup blueberries per day; a second group (n=39) consumed the equivalent of ½ cup blueberries per day; the third group (n=39) consumed a pla...

In industrialised countries, modern diets provide an abundance of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) relative to omega-3 PUFAs, and this is known to contribute to the incidence of cardiovascular conditions along with the chronic immune activation seen in atopic and inflammatory disorders. Nutrition research has shown that an intervention as simple as increasing dietary intakes of EPA and DHA relative to common omega-6 fats could effectively improve cardiovascular outcomes in individuals an...