[LindaT]

I like the chocolate part. Actually, this sounds like very Med friendly cuisine.


Eaten regularly, food combinations could lower heart risks

Updated: 1:32 p.m. ET Dec. 17, 2004LONDON - If you enjoy good food and don’t like the idea of taking pills to reduce the risks of heart attack or stroke, it could be time to try the Polymeal.


Foods ranging from wine to fish and fruits and vegetables have been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, so Dr. Oscar Franco, a public health expert at the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands, decided to combine them in one meal.

If people over 50 years old consumed roughly the daily equivalent of the Polymeal, the researchers calculated, they could slash the odds of suffering from heart disease, one of the world’s biggest killers, by 76 percent.

“The message of our paper is that a healthy lifestyle and a good balanced diet is a good alternative to prevent cardiovascular disease,” Franco said in an interview.

Proven protective effects
He and his team searched scientific literature to find foods that have a proven protective effect against cardiovascular disease and then used a mathematical model to determine how much the combined effects of the individual ingredients would reduce the risk of the illness. The results are reported in the British Medical Journal

The Polymeal consists of wine, fish, dark chocolate, fruit and vegetables, garlic and almonds. The ingredients should be taken daily, apart from fish which could be eaten about four times a week, as part of a balanced diet.

Wine and chocolate must be consumed in moderation.

The scientists said the results of eating the Polymeal would be most dramatic for men, whom they estimated would live 6.6 years longer in total than their counterparts not eating the meal. They would also delay the onset of heart disease by 9 years.

Women would gain nearly 5 years and keep heart disease at bay for about 8 years.

The scientists devised the Polymeal as a non-pharmaceutical alternative to a Polypill, a combination of drugs taken in one dose to cut heart disease, which was proposed in 2003.

Polymeals, combined with exercise and non-smoking, are the ingredients for a healthy lifestyle to prevent heart disease, Franco added.

In a separate report in the journal, renowned chef Raymond Blanc created a three-course dinner of watercress soup, grilled fillet of mackerel with winter root vegetables, chickpeas, toasted almonds and garlic and chocolate mousse, based on the Polymeal ingredients.

[Suzanne 3FC]

Very interesting, thanks! I did a little checking, out of curiosity. I wondered what the name stood for and found this:

Last year the British Medical Journal ran a paper advocating the "Polypill" - combining aspirin, folic acid and cholesterol-lowering and blood-pressure drugs - for everybody over 55. But an article in the Christmas issue says a "Polymeal", containing fish, wine, dark chocolate, fruits and vegetables, garlic and almonds, would achieve roughly the same effect.

I also found specifics on amounts of the recommended foods, and you're right, they should fit right in with the Med diet, and it appears that they are based on it, since the Med diet is known for being so heart healthy.

The doctors searched medical literature to find foods that have been proven to lower the risk of heart disease. Drinking 150ml of wine a day cuts the risk by 32%, they say, and fish consumed four times a week reduces it by 14%. A daily intake of 100g of dark chocolate and 400g of fruit and vegetables lower blood pressure, further cutting the risk of heart disease. Garlic and almonds both lower cholesterol levels. The daily Polymeal contains 2.7g of garlic and 68g of almonds.

"Combining all the ingredients of the Polymeal resulted in cardiovascular disease being reduced by 76%," they write. "Whether increasing the amount of each ingredient would increase the effect of the Polymeal is uncertain. On the other hand, decreasing the quantities could be expected to reduce the effects of the Polymeal."

The Polymeal can either be eaten as an entire meal - or the ingredients can be eaten separately during the day, say the doctors.

I thought it interesting that a small glass of wine reduces risk by 32%. I knew it helped, but had not seen the stats before. I might have to learn to like wine.

I like the idea of chocolate too, lol. The recommended type is bittersweet, though, which isn't as much fun

[Leenie]

Chocolate polypills........ Well Hello !!!

[Suzanne 3FC]

Chocolate It turns out that not just any dark chocolate will do. Many commmercial chocolates use cocoa products that have been processed in a way that removes the flavonoids from the chocolate, and that's what we are trying to get. (fyi, dark choc has twice the flavonoids as milk choc) Some chocolate makers are using a cocoa (Cocoapro) that has been specially processed to retain the flavonoids. Dove Dark Chocolate has been shown to have the highest amount of flavonoids and is being used as the standard for testing, and this is what is recommended for a heart healthy diet.

Act as an antioxidant.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis compared the effects of 1 1/3 oz of high-flavanol Dove Dark chocolate with the same amount of low-flavanol dark chocolate on 10 healthy people. They found that only the Dove Dark had heart-healthy benefits: It reduced LDL oxidation and boosted antioxidant levels and HDL concentrations in the blood.

Other studies have shown that the higher the Cocoapro "dose," the higher the levels of antioxidants in the blood and the less LDL oxidation.

Keep blood platelets from clumping together.
In the test tube, Cocoapro cocoa reduces blood clotting; it may also stabilize arterial plaque, making it less likely to travel and cause a stroke or heart attack. This effect is similar to that of aspirin.

Increase blood vessel flexibility.
Unlike aspirin, some of the procyanidins in Cocoapro trigger the production of nitric oxide, which helps keep arteries flexible and increases bloodflow. "This connection has potential implications for blood pressure control," says Dr. Schmitz.

If you eat it, make sure you fit it into your diet. A bar of Dove Dark weighs 1.3 oz (36.9 grams) and contains 200 calories, 12 grams fat, and 19 grams sugar.
http://www.dovechocolate.com/collection/singles.html
I'd be afraid to eat the full 100g of daily chocolate that the article in the BBC recommended. Other sources state 1 oz should be enough.


Fish is also recommended, but many people may be leary of eating too much fish, due to the mercury. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehg.html This chart by the FDA shows the levels of mercury found in various types of fish, so we should look for varieties that have the lowest amounts. Tilapia has one of the lowest levels, which is great because it's so popular right now.

[LindaT]

I am adding a bag of mini Dove Bars to my grocery list. Good thing dark chocolate is my favorite kind....

I tell ya. It's getting close to being like the movie Sleeper, where Woody Allen wakes up in the future to find out steaks, hot fudge sundaes and smoking are "healthy" .

[Leenie]

So....how many bars can we eat

Tilapia being one of the lowest COOL !!!!!!!