Q&A: What is in the new American Heart Association dietary recommendations?

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and diet is the most effective way to reduce the risk of heart disease, according to the American Heart Association. To that end, the American Heart Association regularly issues dietary recommendations for maintaining a healthy heart. Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State, was part of the team of researchers who drafted the most recent recommendations.

Petersen said that even though the recommendations have not changed dramatically, they represent a good opportunity for people to reflect on and examine their diets and eating habits.

In this Q&A, Petersen discussed what the new recommendations include and how people should approach their diets.

Q: What are the newly released guidelines from the American Heart Association?

Petersen: The new recommendations from the American Heart Association focus, as they always have, on improving cardiovascular health. The overarching recommendation is to follow a healthy dietary pattern. Dietary patterns encompass all foods and beverages consumed throughout the day, whether prepared and consumed at home or outside the home. Evidence shows that intake of a heart-healthy dietary patterns is associated with better cardiovascular health and lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

It's important to remember that there are lots of ways to do this — many healthy diets. But what they all have in common are a lot of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, legumes and unsaturated fats rather than saturated fats.

Generally, a healthy diet also includes fish and low-fat or fat-free dairy and is low in sodium and added sugars.

Q: Are there any big changes in the recommendations?

Petersen: These guidelines are very consistent with the previous dietary recommendations from the American Heart Association that were released in 2021. The new guidance takes into consideration all of the research evidence that was published since 2021, and the conclusions are largely similar. This reflects how consistent this evidence is and has been over time.

Q: How does a healthy diet affect heart health?

Petersen: People who consume a healthy diet have a much lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

It is well known that cardiovascular disease is a huge problem in the U.S.; it accounts for about a third of deaths in both males and females. Also, when we include hypertension, about half of all adults have cardiovascular disease.

Following a healthy diet helps to keep key risk factors for cardiovascular disease within the recommended ranges. This includes blood pressure, LDL-cholesterol — the so-called "bad" cholesterol — blood glucose and body weight. It is also important to note that the recommendations for heart-healthy diets are generally consistent with diets recommended to reduce the risk of other conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, some cancers, kidney disease and cognitive decline.

Q: How should people read these guidelines to make a practical difference in their lives?

Petersen: The key takeaway here is that there is no single diet that can prevent cardiovascular disease. Really, there are lots of different diets you can follow. Heart healthy diets include the key principles we discussed above — vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, legumes and unsaturated fats — but they're also flexible and can accommodate personal preference, budget, cultural and religious practice and phase of life.

Flexibility is important because we all like to eat different foods and come from different backgrounds. These guidelines allow you to incorporate the foods that you like into a healthy dietary pattern.