New Lifestyle Guidelines to prevent stroke and heart attack

New lifestyle guidelines is to "reevaluate and update the concept of a healthy lifestyle," with the specific aim of preventing progression to cardiovascular disease in at-risk patients.


As such, the recommendations cover evidence related to dietary patterns, nutrient intake, and levels and types of physical activity that play "a major role in cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment through effects on modifiable cardiOvascular risk factors," namely high LDL
cholesterol and hypertension,


Eat a dietary pattern that is rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains, fish, low-fat dairy, lean poultry, nuts, legumes, and nontropical vegetable oils consistent with a Mediterranean or DASH-type diet.

Restrict consumption of saturated fats, trans fats, sweets, sugar-sweetened beverages, and sodium.

Engage in aerobic physical activity of moderate to vigorous intensity lasting 40 minutes per session three to four times per week
The lifestyle and diet—namely calcium, magnesium, and alcohol intake; cardiorespiratory fitness; single behavioral intervention or multicomponent lifestyle interventions; the addition of lifestyle intervention to pharmacotherapy; and smoking. These may, however, have "potential benefits," .

The new guidelines, recommendations are broken out according to whether an adult in question has higher-than-desirable lipid profiles or higher-than-desirable blood-pressure levels, although the recommendations for both groups are very similar.

Low-Fat Diets Give Way to Mediterranean

The guidelines emphasize Mediterranean-style dietary patterns over a "low-fat dietary pattern," which is scarcely mentioned in the document, although "low-fat dairy products" are part of the dietary pattern advice. There are no specific recommendations to reduce overall fat consumption, only to reduce the percent of calories consumed from saturated and trans fats.

Also notable are the recommendations on sodium. The general recommendation to "reduce sodium intake" is given a level of evidence A (strong), in the NHLBI grading system or a class IA by the ACC/AHA grading system. By contrast, advice to further restrict sodium intake to 1500 mg/day as "desirable" .
The mean daily sodium intake in the US is about 3.5 g. "We're all consuming too much sodium . . . and it's absolutely critical to reduce it." However, she continued, "accurately assessing sodium intake is extremely difficult and probably clouds the whole issue, as does the [use of a] specific target.