FOOD CONSUMPTION AND THE ACTUAL STATISTICS OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES: AN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL COMPARISON OF 42 EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

GRASGRUBER, Pavel, Martin SEBERA, Eduard HRAZDÍRA, Sylva HŘEBÍČKOVÁ and Jan CACEK. FOOD CONSUMPTION AND THE ACTUAL STATISTICS OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES: AN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL COMPARISON OF 42 EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. Food & Nutrition Research. Sweden: Co-Action Publishing, 2016, vol. 2016, No 60, p. nestránkováno, 27 pp. ISSN 1654-6628. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.3402/fnr.v60.31694.

Basic information

• Original name: FOOD CONSUMPTION AND THE ACTUAL STATISTICS OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES: AN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL COMPARISON OF 42 EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
• Authors: GRASGRUBER, Pavel (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution), Martin SEBERA (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution), Eduard HRAZDÍRA (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution), Sylva HŘEBÍČKOVÁ (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution) and Jan CACEK (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Food & Nutrition Research, Sweden, Co-Action Publishing, 2016, 1654-6628.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: Sport and leisure time activities
• Country of publisher: Sweden
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Impact factor: Impact factor: 2.039
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14510/16:00091078
• Organization unit: Faculty of Sports Studies
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/fnr.v60.31694
• UT WoS: 000396880200001
• Keywords in English: prevention; BMI; smoking; food consumption
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: The aim of this ecological study was to identify the main nutritional factors related to the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in Europe, based on a comparison of international statistics. Design: The mean consumption of 62 food items from the FAOSTAT database (1993–2008) was compared with the actual statistics of five CVD indicators in 42 European countries. Several other exogenous factors (health expenditure, smoking, body mass index) and the historical stability of results were also examined. Results: We found exceptionally strong relationships between some of the examined factors, the highest being a correlation between raised cholesterol in men and the combined consumption of animal fat and animal protein (r=0.92, p<0.001). The most significant dietary correlate of low CVD risk was high total fat and animal protein consumption. Additional statistical analyses further highlighted citrus fruits, high-fat dairy (cheese) and tree nuts. Among other non-dietary factors, health expenditure showed by far the highest correlation coefficients. The major correlate of high CVD risk was the proportion of energy from carbohydrates and alcohol, or from potato and cereal carbohydrates. Similar patterns were observed between food consumption and CVD statistics from the period 1980–2000, which shows that these relationships are stable over time. However, we found striking discrepancies in men’s CVD statistics from 1980 and 1990, which can probably explain the origin of the ‘saturated fat hypothesis’ that influenced public health policies in the following decades. Conclusion: Our results do not support the association between CVDs and saturated fat, which is still contained in official dietary guidelines. Instead, they agree with data accumulated from recent studies that link CVD risk with the high glycaemic index/load of carbohydrate-based diets. In the absence of any scientific evidence connecting saturated fat with CVDs, these findings show that current dietary recommendations regarding CVDs should be seriously reconsidered.