New Dietary Advice Is From the Heart

B O S T O N, Oct. 5, 2000 -- Americans need to lose weight but should veer away from the popular yet controversial high-protein diets, according to the American Heart Association’s new nutritional guidelines.

The association says Americans in their battle against the bulge should not focus so much on proteins, such as meat and fish, but should get their nutrients and calories from all food groups, including vegetables and fruit.

The group also suggests people should exercise to lose weight and eat less fat.

They new guidelines, which are based on an analysis of hundreds of recent scientific studies, serves as a model for dietary recommendations by other groups such as the American Dietetic Association. They were announced today in New York City by the Dallas, Texas-based organization.

Obesity Epidemic The association made fighting weight gain a priority this year because Americans’ expanding waistlines have now reached crisis level.

“The data shows a 1 percent increase in obesity per year in the United States since the early ’90s,” says Penny Kris-Etherton, a professor of nutrition at Penn State University in University Park, Penn., who helped develop the guidelines. “This portends terrible things in the future in terms of heart disease, and other diseases as well.”

A diverse diet is key to nutritional health, the guidelines say. People should eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily, and six or more servings of grains and beans. Meats should be lean and dairy products should be low-fat or fat-free.

Besides recommending a mixed diet, the association says people should monitor their calories and engage in physical exercise to lose weight. The organization suggests walking 30 minutes a day, participating in moderate exercise almost every day or cutting down on watching television to help burn calories.

Calculations Too Complex But Americans can now throw away their calculators when figuring out how much fat to eat, the association says. Previously, the AHA recommended healthy adults eat less 30 percent of their total calories as fat and to keep saturated fats under 10 percent of total calories to keep their cholesterol levels down. Now, the group simply advises adults “minimize” foods high in saturated fat, such as meats, butter, whole milk, cheese and coconut and palm oils.

The association stressed Americans limit their intake of trans-unsaturated fatty acids. These fatty acids are hydrogenated oils found in hard margarine, packaged cookies and crackers, and commercially fried foods. The Food and Drug Administration is currently considering making it a requirement that trans-fatty acids be distinguished in the nutritional labeling of packaged foods.

For fish lovers, the guidelines are a godsend. Americans, they say, should consume two servings a week of fatty fish, such as canned or fresh tuna, salmon or sardines, because they contain Omega-3 fatty acids, the group says. Experts now believe these fatty acids protect the heart by preventing blood clots and arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat.

To keep arteries unclogged, the association still advises eating less than 300 milligrams of cholesterol a day, although it has relaxed its stance somewhat on high-cholesterol foods such as eggs and shellfish.

Other recommendations from past guidelines are the same: to keep high blood pressure down, adults should consume less than 2,400 milligrams of sodium a day and stick to one drink a day for women, two a day for men, who are generally larger.

Look to the Future The guidelines also mention directions for further research for food and supplements not currently established enough for inclusion in the current recommendations, including antioxidants, folic acid, soy protein, fiber supplements, and plant sterols.

But the organization says research shows that high-protein diets, such as those recommended by Dr. Robert C. Atkins, are not healthy and have not been proven to work in the long run.

Such diets are high in saturated fat and cholesterol and have been shown to increase blood cholesterol levels, a major risk factor for heart disease, Kris-Etherton says.

“I am a true disbeliever in these diets,” Kris-Etherton says. “We want people to lose weight, but these diets are just not healthy diets. The long-term use of those is really questionable.”

The new guidelines, authored by a panel of 19 scientific experts, appear in the Oct. 31 issue of the AHA journal Circulation. The guidelines are similar to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines, most recently revised this past May, but have a greater emphasis on the health of the heart.

The guidelines should make it easier for Americans to eat a healthy diet, say experts.

“We’re trying to go to food-based guidelines rather than number-based guidelines,” explains Alice Lichtenstein, a professor of nutrition at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., who served on the AHA committee. “I think it will be easier for people to put the guidelines into practice.”