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Heart disease and diet

• Overview
• Food Sources
• Recommendations

Alternative Names:

Diet - heart disease

Recommendations:

• Maintain your ideal body weight and balance the number of calories you eat with the number you use each day. You can ask a dietician or a health care professional to help you determine these numbers.
• Limit your intake of foods high in calories or low in nutrition, including foods like soft drinks and candy that have lots of sugars.
• Eat five or more servings per day of fruits and vegetables.
• Eat six or more servings per day of grain products, including whole grains. Grain products provide fiber, vitamins, minerals, and complex carbohydrates . The daily calories should be appropriate for the maintenance of desirable body weight and should support growth in children and adolescents.
• Reduce total fat intake. Limit foods high in saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, and partially hydrogenated oils. Reduce or avoid saturated fat when possible. Saturate fat raises your cholesterol level. Choose liquid or tub margarine, canola oil, or olive oil. These have 2g or less of saturated fat per serving.
• Eat less than 300 mg of dietary cholesterol daily. (For example, one egg yolk contains an average of 213 mg.)
• Limit the amount of salt (sodium chloride) you eat. You should eat less than 2,400 mg of salt per day. Check food labels, since many foods contain salt.
• Exercise regularly. For example, walk for at least 30 minutes a day.
• Limit the amount of alcohol you drink. Women should have no more than one alcoholic drink (such as red wine) per day. Men should not drink more than two. While major studies have linked some alcohol consumption to health benefits, excessive drinking can do more harm than good.

EATING TIPS

• To reduce fat and cholesterol, eat no more than 6 cooked ounces of meat, poultry, and fish daily. One serving of meat should be about the size of a deck of cards on your plate.
• Use skinless turkey, chicken, fish, or lean red meat to reduce the amount of saturated fat in your diet. Lean, 3 ounce cuts of red meat may be used occasionally.
• Trim all the visible fat prior to cooking the meat. Eat two servings of fish per week. Cook by baking, broiling, roasting, steaming, boiling, or microwaving rather than deep fat frying. For the main entree, use less meat or have meatless meals a few times a week. Use smaller amounts of meat to reduce the total fat content of the meal. Use no more than 5-8 teaspoons of fats or oils per day for salads, cooking, and baking.
• To reduce high cholesterol, do not use more than 3-4 egg yolks per week, including eggs used in cooking. Eat less organ meat (such as liver) and shellfish (such as shrimp and lobster).
• To reduce salt, reduce the amount of table salt used, and limit the use of prepared foods that have salt added to them, such as canned soups and vegetables, cured meats, and some frozen meals. Always check the nutrition label for the sodium content per serving.

• Review Date: 11/7/2006
• Reviewed By: Patrika M. Tsai, MD, MPH, Specialist in Nutrition, Foster City, CA. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.

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