Healthnotes Newswire — Women who eat healthy diets have a significantly reduced risk of suffering a heart attack, according to a study published last month in the Archives of Internal Medicine.¹ This conclusion was drawn from the results of the Nurses’ Health Study, a large survey of the dietary and lifestyle habits of nearly 70,000 American women.

In 1984, each woman participating in the study filled out a questionnaire concerning her dietary habits. The diets were then rated according to how closely they resembled a so-called “prudent diet” (defined as a diet with large amounts of fruits, vegetables, beans, fish, poultry, and whole grains) or a so-called “Western diet” (defined as a diet rich in sweets, fried foods, refined grains such as white flour and rice, and red and processed meats). The incidence of heart attacks was then documented during a 12-year follow-up period.

The researchers found that the 20% of women whose diets most closely resembled the prudent diet were 24% less likely to suffer a heart attack than were the rest of the women in the study. Also, the 20% of women whose diets most closely resembled the Western diet were 46% more likely to suffer a heart attack. The authors adjusted their results to account for the effects of other known or suspected heart disease risk factors, including smoking, obesity, and exercise levels.

Studies of this type in the past have generally focused on the effect of a particular dietary component (e.g., vegetables or sugar) on the incidence of heart disease. While the new study did not identify which particular dietary components were most important, it did show that consuming the type of diet that is widely regarded as healthful can reduce the risk of suffering a heart attack.

This study is also notable for its focus on women, a rarity in studies of this type. A previous study by the same research team performed the same multi-factorial analysis of the diets of men, finding nearly the same results.²