Green Options

5 million people in the United States have heart failure.

550,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.

More than 287,000 people in the United States die each year with heart failure.

The estimated direct cost for heart failure each year is $29.6 billion in the US alone.

A new study of dietary patterns in 52 countries reveals that a typical Western diet of fried foods, salty snacks, and meat increases the risk for heart attacks by 35%.

The good news?

You can lower that risk by changing your diet.

The INTERHEART study analyzed almost 6,000 heart attack cases and compared them to over 10,000 control cases (without known heart disease). It included 16,000 participants living in 52 countries around the world, confirming that “the same relationships that are observed in Western countries exist in different regions of the world.” (Salim Yusuf, D.Phil., the study’s senior author)

“A simple dietary score, which included both good and bad foods with the higher score indicating a worse diet, showed that 30 percent of the risk of heart disease in a population could be related to poor diet.” - Romania Iqbal, Ph.D., lead author