Medical expert of the article
New publications
A diet rich in antioxidants will protect against myocardial infarction
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death among women.
A new study shows that a diet rich in antioxidants, mostly consisting of fruits and vegetables, can significantly reduce the risk of heart attack.
An article by Swedish scientists from the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm was published in the October issue of the American Journal of Medicine.
A great deal of scientific research is aimed at finding out how and what foods affect our health, in particular, scientists are interested in the ability of foods to reduce the risk of disease.
The researchers conducted a large-scale study involving 32,561 women aged 49 to 83 years between September 1997 and December 2007.
Participants completed questionnaires, answering questions in detail about their culinary preferences, the frequency and quantity of food they consumed, and the beverages they regularly drank.
After ten years of observation, they were able to find out that those subjects who consumed foods with the highest antioxidant content were 20% less likely to suffer from cardiovascular diseases than their peers whose daily diet contained fewer antioxidants.
All volunteers were divided into five groups, each of which followed its own special diet.
The group whose diet consisted of foods with the lowest antioxidant content was at the highest risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Women in the group with the highest antioxidant content ate 7 more servings of fruits and vegetables.
During the study period, 1,114 women suffered from myocardial infarction.
"Unlike just taking specific antioxidant supplements, getting the full range of antioxidants from food has been shown to be significantly more beneficial to the body and reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease," says lead researcher Alicia Volk.
"Despite the growing popularity of weight loss diets in the United States and the population's consumption of fruits and vegetables, only 14% of adults and 9.5% of children and adolescents currently include more than five servings of fruits or vegetables in their daily diet," the researchers emphasize.
[ 1 ], [ 2 ], [ 3 ], [ 4 ], [ 5 ], [ 6 ], [ 7 ], [ 8 ], [ 9 ], [ 10 ], [ 11 ]