Popular diets like the keto and paleo aren't good for your heart, a survey claims

Some of the most popular diets received low grades in an examination of different diets for deviating from recommendations for heart-healthy eating.

Although popular, ketogenic and paleo diets are not good for your heart.

According to a survey from the American Heart Association, which examined many of the most well-known diets and ranked them according to which eating habits are best and worst for your heart, this is the result.

One of the goals of the paper, according to its authors, was to combat the pervasive nutrition misinformation conveyed by diet books, blogs, and users of TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, where posts supporting the keto and paleo diets have grown in popularity in recent years.

The amount of false information that has proliferated on social media platforms has reached "critical levels," according to Christopher D. Gardner, director of nutrition research at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and chair of the group that produced the report.

Heart-healthy diet is probably confusing to the general population and many medical professionals, and this is understandable," he noted. "Many of them probably believe they lack the knowledge or the time to assess the crucial aspects of the various diets.

Diets ranked for heart health

Several eating patterns were examined for the paper, which was written by a group of nutrition scientists, cardiologists, dietitians, and other health professionals and published on Thursday in the journal Circulation.

The diets were assessed to determine how well they adhered to heart-healthy eating recommendations, which are founded on data from decades of randomized controlled trials, epidemiological research, and other studies. The survey also looked at things like whether the diets were flexible enough for people to modify them according to their cultural and personal preferences and financial limitations.

In accordance with the heart association's recommendations, one should consume a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains like brown rice, bulgur, and steel-cut oats, lean meats, as well as foods like olive oil, vegetable oils, and seafood, which is rich in protein and heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

Limiting foods that are excessively processed, salty, sweet, or produced with white flour and other refined grains is advised by the group. These include processed meats like hot dogs, sausages, and cold cuts, soft beverages, white bread, white spaghetti, cookies, cakes, and pastries.

The evidence that alcohol has a positive impact on the cardiovascular system is dubious. According to the heart association, those who don't currently drink shouldn't start, and those who do should moderate their consumption.

Popular low-carb diets received the lowest marks

On a scale of 0 to 100, the heart association gave some of the trendiest diets that are heavily promoted on social media its lowest rankings. These included the Atkins and ketogenic diets (31 points each), as well as the paleo diet (53 points).

You typically need to limit your carbohydrate intake to less than 10% of daily calories in order to follow such diets. The diets are heavily marketed for weight loss and have the support of numerous celebrities.

People are so afraid of carbohydrates, and this is something you often see on Instagram, according to Lisa Young, an adjunct professor of nutrition at New York University who was not involved in the study. That's false information, though. These healthy carbs include fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. These foods form the basis of a balanced diet

According to the study, the Atkins and ketogenic diets have the following advantages: For instance, they discourage the consumption of sugar and refined grains and promote the consumption of non-starchy vegetables such as broccoli, asparagus, leafy greens, and cauliflower. However, they typically call for restricting a lot of "healthy" carbs, such as beans, whole grains, starchy vegetables, and many fruits, which are in line with the heart association's dietary recommendations. Additionally, they frequently consume a lot of fatty meats and foods high in saturated fat.

Very low-carb diets have been linked to improved triglyceride and blood sugar levels, as well as weight loss, according to some studies. But according to the heart association's report, these gains are typically fleeting and very low-carb diets frequently raise LDL cholesterol levels, which can increase the risk of heart disease.

Similar issues were discovered with the paleo diet, which forbids the consumption of grains, vegetable oils, most dairy products, and legumes like peanuts and soybeans. The idea behind the diet is that it allows foods that our hunter-gatherer ancestors could have consumed, like fruit and honey, but forbids grains and other items related to modern agriculture.

The diets have also come under fire for what critics perceive to be an all-you-can-eat approach to red meat, including steaks, burgers, bacon, and processed deli meats. For example, TikTok's "Liver King" rose to fame by endorsing a contentious, meat-heavy "ancestral" diet that mainly consisted of organ and muscle meats.

It's expected that controversy will result from the ketogenic and paleo diets' low rankings. Three doctors warned that the enthusiasm for the ketogenic diet was outpacing the science in an essay that was published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2019. The study was divisive and led to a deluge of emails from both supporters and opponents.

The Atkins diet, which consists of three methods with different carbohydrate limits, wasn't adequately described in the new report, according to Colette Heimowitz, vice president of nutrition and education at Atkins.

One method, which is frequently used for rapid weight loss, allows only 20 grams of carbohydrates per day. A third Atkins approach allows up to 100 grams of carbohydrates daily, including small amounts of fruit, starchy vegetables, beans, and whole grains. Another Atkins version permits 40 grams of carbohydrates per day. According to Heimowitz, "Evidence suggests that Americans have different tolerances to carbohydrate loads." Therefore, diets high in carbohydrates, like the Atkins diet, have never been more important.

The four heart-healthy diets

The DASH eating pattern, which stands for "dietary approaches to stop hypertension," received the highest rating from the heart association — a score of 100. The DASH diet was created by scientists at the National Institutes of Health in the 1990s and is widely supported by medical professionals, dietitians, and other nutrition experts.

But it doesn't exactly generate much buzz among famous people and social media influencers. The diet encourages people to limit their intake of salt, fatty meats, added sugars, and refined grains while placing an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, and low-fat dairy.

But it doesn't exactly generate much buzz among famous people and social media influencers. The diet encourages people to limit their intake of salt, fatty meats, added sugars, and refined grains while placing an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, and low-fat dairy.

The heart association classified the DASH diet as Tier 1, along with three other high-scoring diets. The vegetarian diet (86 points), the Mediterranean diet (89 points), and the pescatarian diet (92 points) round out the Tier 1 group.

While these diets have some minor variations, they all support eating fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, beans, and other whole foods. Similar to the vegetarian diet, but with seafood allowed, is the pescatarian diet. While the DASH diet allows alcohol, it does not actively encourage it, the Mediterranean diet encourages moderate drinking.

We came to the conclusion that all of these diets are good and very consistent with a heart-healthy diet," Gardner said.

Low-fat and vegan diets

Gardner emphasized that the report evaluated diets in accordance with how they are "intended" to be followed, rather than necessarily in accordance with how some individuals actually follow or interpret them.

For instance, a vegetarian can have breakfast that includes Coca-Cola, potato chips, and an Egg McMuffin from McDonald's without the meat. Although it is a vegetarian diet, Gardner claimed that it is not particularly heart-healthy.

When we advise people to eat a plant-based diet, we don't mean that," he continued. "I know from conducting these studies that people don't always adhere to diets as intended: They adhere to them based on false information," the researcher said.

Two additional tiers of dietary patterns were included in the report. Because they promote consuming fiber-rich plants, fruits, and vegetables while avoiding sugary foods and alcohol, vegan and low-fat diets were placed in the second tier. However, the report made note of how restrictive they are and how they can be challenging for many people to adhere to. Particularly the vegan diet can make you more susceptible to problems like vitamin B12 deficiency.

The second-lowest range of scores were assigned to the third group of diets. This group included very low-fat eating regimens like the Ornish, Esselstyn, and Pritikin programs, which limit fat intake to less than 10% of daily calories, as well as low-carb strategies like the South Beach and Zone diets, which cap carbs at 30 or 40% of daily calories.

The report discovered that these diets received lower ratings because they restrict or exclude a number of nutritious foods. People who follow low-carb diets, for example, tend to consume more saturated fat and less fiber, whereas those who follow very-low-fat diets must limit all types of fat, including the beneficial unsaturated fats present in foods like olive oil, avocados, nuts, and seeds.

Even though the report gave some diets low marks, it did discover that all of the diets in every tier shared four advantageous characteristics: They urged people to consume more non-starchy vegetables, whole foods, less added sugar, and unrefined grains.

"If we could get Americans to do those four things, that would go a long way toward everyone eating a healthy diet," said Gardner.

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