A 20-year study of more than 65,000 postmenopausal women found that higher adherence to the Planetary Health Diet was associated with lower risk of overall cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure.
They found that women whose diets most closely followed the Planetary Health Diet had an approximately 28% lower risk of cardiovascular disease than women in the least compliant group. However, even moderate adherence to the diet was associated with reduced risk.
The Planetary Health Diet emphasizes foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and unsaturated fats, and limits foods such as red and processed meats, added sugars, refined grains, and saturated fats.
Our results suggest that you may not need to follow a perfect diet or a highly restrictive diet to reap potential heart health benefits. This is especially important for postmenopausal women, as cardiovascular risk increases with age and tends to rise after menopause. ”
Donya Shahamati, doctoral student in public health, University of California, Irvine
Professor Shahamaty will present his findings at NUTRITION 2026, the American Academy of Nutrition’s flagship annual meeting, to be held from July 25 to 28 in National Harbor, Maryland, outside Washington, DC.
“Transitioning to a more plant-friendly, higher-quality diet can be achieved by making small, practical changes,” Shahamati said. “These changes might include filling half your plate with vegetables more often, using avocado or olive oil instead of butter, choosing oatmeal or whole grain cereal for breakfast, and trying a meat-free meal once a week.”
For the new study, researchers followed 66,892 participants in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), a long-term national health study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. All women included in the analysis were free of cardiovascular disease at the start of the study (1994-1998) and had complete information on diet and other important health and lifestyle factors.
Researchers calculated a Planetary Healthy Eating Index score for each study participant using information collected through a food frequency questionnaire administered at the beginning of the study. The higher the score, the more consistent the diet is with the planet’s healthy diet. The researchers then divided the women into five groups based on how closely their diets matched the Planetary Health Eating Approach.
The women, who were about 63 years old at the start of the study, were followed for about 20 years to see which developed cardiovascular disease. When analyzing the data, the researchers adjusted for several factors that can influence cardiovascular risk, including age, race, ethnicity, education, income, smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity, BMI, and total caloric intake.
“We didn’t just look at cardiovascular disease as a whole,” Shahamati said. “We also looked at coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure separately. This allowed us to see if the patterns were similar across outcomes for different types of cardiovascular disease.”
Overall, the results showed that women in the group whose diet more closely matched the Planetary Health Diet had the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease. These women also showed a reduced risk of heart disease, heart failure, and stroke compared to women in the least adherent group.
However, even moderate dietary adherence was associated with reduced risk, and each 10-point increase in Planetary Health Diet Index score was associated with a further reduction in risk.
The researchers cautioned that such observational studies cannot show that diet directly caused women’s lower risk.
The research team is currently investigating other aspects of diet and health in older populations. For example, they are investigating how this population’s diet quality changes over time, information that may help support healthy aging and prevent chronic disease.
sauce:
American Academy of Nutrition
