Moderately restraining caloric intake can dramatically reduce the risk of heart attack: study – Xinhua

SYDNEY, July 12 (Xinhua) – An international study conducted by Australian medical researchers has found that reducing even moderate caloric intake can significantly reduce the risk of heart attack.

Published Friday in the prestigious journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, this year – long study, conducted by the University of Sydney, was conducted in three clinics in the United States and coordinated at Duke University in Britain.

"This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the results of moderate caloric restrictions have been badyzed in non-obese individuals with clinically normal risk factors," said the paper's author, Luigi Fontana, a professor at the University of California. University of Sydney.

"No other drug can achieve these reductions with all conventional cardiometabolic risk factors, thanks to a marginal reduction in caloric intake, while providing all the essential vitamins and minerals of food."

With 75 people between the ages of 21 and 50 with moderate overweight, participants were 13 times less likely to develop cardiovascular disease than participants aged 50 and over with two or more abnormal risk factors.

The researchers said the risk of developing other diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, stroke, inflammation and some forms of cancer, had also been significantly reduced.

"Modern medicine focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of clinically evident chronic diseases, which are largely preventable, one at a time, mainly with drugs and surgery," Fontana explained.

"The problem with this approach is that many age-related chronic diseases – including cardiovascular diseases – start early in life and progress during decades of unhealthy diets and lifestyles, which triggers a wide range of physiological, metabolic and molecular changes that profoundly influence the initiation, progression and prognosis of several medical conditions ".

"Our study shows that even healthy people, young and middle-aged, can benefit from focusing on their calorie intake, stating that it's usually important not to delay." Even changes minors in any moment of life could make all the difference. "

"This should be an important new tool to combat the ravages of the 21st century western lifestyle, with cardiovascular disease being the leading cause of death and disability in the world," concluded Fontana.