By Mike Howard on Oct 25, 2010
This may seem rudimentary to the point of ridiculousness, but good food does good things to the body.... I know, I know, and water is wet.
This study caught my attention for the fact that it's a unique "tweener" as far as studies go - not looking at specific nutrients of foods and yet not a tremendously large and convoluted mess, like the Nurses Health Study.
Instead, this study - headed by Inger Björck, professor of food-related nutrition at Lund University - looked at the health effects of a diet with multiple foods that are thought to reduce inflammation. Here are the study's details;
Study Particulars
- Forty-four healthy, overweight people between the ages of 50 and 75 took part in the diet study.
- For four weeks they ate foods which are presumed to reduce low-grade inflammation in the body, a condition which in turn triggers metabolic syndrome and thus obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
- The test diet was high in antioxidants, low-GI foods (i.e. slow release carbohydrates), omega fatty acids, wholegrain products, probiotics and viscous dietary fibre.
- Examples of foods eaten were oily fish, barley, soy protein, blueberries, almonds, cinnamon, vinegar and a certain type of wholegrain bread.
Study Results
- LDL cholesterol was reduced by 33 percent.
- Blood lipids reduced by 14 percent.
- Blood pressure reduced by 8 percent.
- A risk marker for blood clots by 26 percent.
- A marker of inflammation in the body was also greatly reduced, while memory and cognitive function were improved.
Some Thoughts
- The study results make sense as these are healthy, largely unprocessed foods that have been shown to possess health benefits individually.
- It would be hasty to conclude, however that this group of foods is the optimal way to eat as any dietary change is usually a vast improvement to the average persons dietary habits.
- I would be willing to bet that other dietary patterns may be equally (or at least competitively) as effective as the pattern they chose - so long as calorie consumption was kept in check. A control group of some sort would be warranted to give this study a bit more credibility.
- One of the highlights of studying clusters of different foods is that it helps take the emphasis away from single food "cures" that runs rampant in "superfood" products.
- I'm curious to see what kind of weight loss the participants experienced.
Image credit: jhritz
