Latest news with #FriedmanSchool
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
A Cardiologist Says This Is the One Vegetable Everyone Should Eat for Better Heart Health
Key Takeaways Rich in monounsaturated fats, fiber, potassium, and antioxidants, avocado supports heart health by lowering LDL cholesterol, reducing blood pressure, and fighting inflammation. Avocado's soluble fiber binds to cholesterol in the digestive tract, helping the body remove it naturally and further reducing heart disease risk. Versatile and mild in flavor, avocado can be easily added to salads, sandwiches, smoothies, and dressings to boost your daily intake of heart-friendly a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is one of the best things you can do for your heart. That's because these foods are high in heart-healthy nutrients, including fiber, minerals, and antioxidants. They're also naturally low in saturated ('bad') fats and sodium, which can have negative effects on the heart. However, there's one vegetable that's particularly beneficial for cardiac health, and it's more impressive than you may think. Read on to learn a cardiologist's pick for the best vegetable for heart health, along with ways to eat it at home. Best Vegetable for Heart Health According to Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, cardiologist and director of Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School at Tufts University, one vegetable wins in the realm of cardiac health: avocado. Though technically a fruit, avocado is commonly eaten and prepared like a vegetable, and it's highly beneficial for your Our Expert Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, cardiologist and director of Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School at Tufts UniversityThis is partly due to its rich content of unsaturated fatty acids, or 'good' fats. 'Unsaturated fats come in two major classes, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated,' explains Dr. Mozaffarian. Both types can help manage blood cholesterol levels, a key component of healthy heart function. According to Dr. Mozaffarian avocados contain mostly monounsaturated fatty acids, which help decrease LDL ('bad') cholesterol. This is a noteworthy effect, as high LDL cholesterol levels can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, per the experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Avocado also provides fiber; just half an avocado satisfies 20 percent of your daily fiber needs. This includes soluble fiber, which binds to cholesterol in the intestine and removes it from the body via stool. This reduces cholesterol absorption in the body, thereby supporting healthy blood cholesterol levels and lowering the risk of heart disease. Plus, avocado contains potassium, an essential mineral for heart health. 'Potassium lowers blood pressure and helps offset the harms of sodium,' shares Dr. Mozaffarian. (ICYDK, excess sodium can increase blood pressure, or the force of blood flow against your artery walls.) This can help manage or prevent high blood pressure, or hypertension, another risk factor of cardiovascular disease. To top it off, avocado is teeming with antioxidants. These beneficial compounds fight oxidative stress and inflammation, two factors that also contribute to heart disease. Antioxidants also prevent LDL cholesterol from oxidizing, a process that would otherwise promote plaque buildup in arteries, causing atherosclerosis. If such buildup occurs, it can prevent proper blood flow and lead to heart issues like heart attack and stroke—but antioxidants, like those in avocado, may help reduce the risk. How to Eat More Avocado Equal parts creamy and mild, avocado can be used in many ways. Do your heart a favor and try these delicious avocado recipes, below. Mash It Into Guacamole You can't go wrong with a batch of homemade guacamole. Serve it with tortilla chips, burritos, or sliced vegetables for a boost of fiber and healthy fats. Make a Dressing Make a creamy dressing sans dairy with avocado. Simply toss it in a blender or food processor with spices, lemon juice, and heart-healthy oil (such as olive oil), then blitz until smooth. Pair it with a simple salad, like this Grilled Romaine Salad with Avocado Dressing. Toss In Salads No time to make dressing from scratch? Add chunks, slices, or even half an avocado to your next salad or grain bowl. Try our Grilled Chicken and Corn Salad with Avocado or our Avocado Grain Bowl with Ginger Dressing. Use It In Smoothies Thanks to its rich and creamy texture, avocado can help thicken fruit smoothies. Plus, it has a relatively mild flavor, so it can pair well with a variety of ingredients. Layer In Burgers or Sandwiches For a heart-healthy sandwich upgrade, add a layer of sliced avocado. It's especially tasty in turkey burgers and our Fancy Tomato Sandwiches. Read the original article on Real Simple
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
As Trump pushes for cane sugar in Coca-Cola, is it really better than corn syrup?
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said Coca-Cola agreed to start sweetening its products with cane sugar, rather than high-fructose corn syrup. Whether that will indeed happen remains to be seen; a Coca-Cola spokesperson did not confirm the president's assertion. Still, Trump said on Truth Social, 'You'll see. It's just better!' Is it, though? When it comes to potential health impacts, the answer is no, said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. 'Both high-fructose corn syrup and cane sugar are about 50% fructose, 50% glucose, and have identical metabolic effects,' he said. That is, both can equally raise the risk for obesity, diabetes, and high triglycerides and blood pressure. Both provide the same number of calories, but the body processes them differently. Whether from cane sugar or corn syrup, it's the fructose that appears to cause the most harm. The sugar is almost entirely processed by the liver, which converts excess fructose into triglycerides, a type of fat linked to heart disease. And unlike glucose, fructose doesn't prompt the body to produce insulin. Insulin triggers a hormone that helps a person feel full. Over time, too much fructose can lead to insulin resistance and increase the risk for Type 2 diabetes. Corn syrup does have slightly more fructose than table sugar, at a ratio of 55% fructose to 45% glucose. Dr. Melanie Jay, a professor of medicine and population health at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and director of the NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity Research, said it's possible that switching from corn syrup to cane sugar may be beneficial on a population level. 'A 5% difference might mean that millions of people are getting less fructose,' she said. 'But it's not like table sugar is a health food. Added sugar in whatever form should be limited.' Sugary sodas have long been associated with obesity in children. A 2023 international study found that adolescents who drank one or more soft drinks a day had a higher prevalence of being overweight or obese, compared to young people who didn't drink soda daily. There are 240 calories in a 20-ounce original Coke, with 65 grams of added sugars. The current dietary guidelines recommend that teens and children limit added sugars to less than 50 grams a day. No matter the choice of sweetener, sodas generally fall into the category of ultraprocessed food because of their added sugars, artificial colors and flavorings. All have been targets of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., long an opponent of ultraprocessed foods. The HHS did not respond to a request for comment on the potential change in sweeteners. Is natural sweetener different? While all fruit contains some level of sugar, and some vegetables do, as well, that kind of natural sweetener isn't on the same level as added sugars in soda, Jay said. An apple, for example, does contain sugar, but it's also rich in vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals — and especially fiber. 'When you eat the apple, your stomach has to process it. The sugar isn't released into the body quickly, so you feel more full,' she said. 'When we drink soda, we're not getting that fiber, so the sugar is absorbed directly into our bloodstream.' Does cane sugar taste the same as corn syrup? Would a change in sweetener alter the taste of an icy cold Coca-Cola? Discerning Coke-aphiles probably would notice a difference, said Mozaffarian. (He's on team cane sugar, by the way: 'I can't stand the taste of corn syrup.') Reducing sweetness overall, he said, is key. 'We need to kick America's addiction for intensely — really sickly — sweet taste.' Said NYU's Jay, 'it's always better to cut down on soda, no matter what the form of sugar is.' This article was originally published on Solve the daily Crossword
National Post
18-06-2025
- Health
- National Post
More than 46,000 people observed in a study took their coffee black. Here's what happened to them
Article content However, coffee may not be beneficial for everyone. 'Individuals drinking more than five cups of coffee per day can have an increased risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack) or unstable angina (heart problem causing sudden chest pain),' according to a 2022 study published in the Journal of Personalized Medicine. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health also noted in a 2021 study that 'pregnant women who consumed the caffeine equivalent of as little as half a cup of coffee a day on average had slightly smaller babies than pregnant women who did not consume caffeinated beverages.' Article content One of the limitations of the Tufts' study is that the information used was based on self-reported recall data, which is 'subject to measurement error due to day-to-day variations in food intake.' There was also a lack of significant associations between decaffeinated coffee and all-cause mortality, which could be due to the low consumption among the population studied, per the news release. Article content Article content Zhang, who is the Neely Family Professor at the Friedman School, said in an email to National Post on Tuesday that the driving force behind the research was to address concerns about how coffee additions such as sugars and creams 'may counterbalance coffee's health benefits.' Article content 'Our findings confirm our hypothesis that adding high levels of added sugar and saturated fat make the benefits of coffee consumption lowering mortality risk go away,' she said. Article content She added: 'The key take away is that we need to be mindful about the amount of sugars and saturated fat that we add to coffee when we drink it.' Article content The study is one of the first to quantify the amount of added sugar and saturated fat in coffee. It concluded: 'Although our findings support the health benefits of coffee consumption, the potential negative effects of adding excessive amounts of sugar or saturated fat to coffee warrant public attention.'
