As per WHO, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a major reason for deaths on a global level. In 2019, about 18 million people lost their lives due to them, mainly by cardiac arrests and strokes. In the USA alone, a person dies of CVDs every 36 seconds, and they’re the biggest killers in European continents.
Okay, enough of the horror story! We don’t mean to put you off. Our sole intention is to highlight how serious of an issue CVDs are. And now that we’ve got your attention let’s move on to more positive things – how to keep them at bay.
According to research published in the journal of nutrition, an increase in the daily intake of whole-grain foods by 30-40g can boost up your cardiovascular health and reduce the risk of CVDs. In fact, not just heart health, simply including specific foods in our everyday diet can result in a significant improvement in our overall health and wellbeing.
Quite a simple solution, isn’t it? But it’s funny how despite hearing and reading about things a million times, we take a while to get the point.
The relationship between food and health
Death rates due to CVDs might have fallen recently, yet the condition still remains one of the main causes of mortality in Europe.
With almost six million new cases and over 1.8 million CVD-related deaths in Europe, the disease costs the European economy around 210 billion Euros per year. Needless to say, it’s a considerable burden on the country’s healthcare system and budget.
Several solutions have been devised to tackle this situation, however, the most full-proof remedy has emerged from lifestyle changes. To prevent CVD, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises that a person should avoid smoking, have healthy habits, and eat nutritious food as much as possible, especially whole grains.
A recent EAT-Lancet Commission on food, planet, and health stated that consumption of whole-grain foods is a factual key to mitigate and reduce the risks of cardiovascular diseases, along with type-2 diabetes and colorectal cancer.
Many other researchers also trust that the consumption of whole grains not only prevents CVDs, but keeps you at bay from infectious diseases, respiratory problems, and basically from all sorts of mortality.
While research is still going to further substantiate the connection between whole grains and CVDs, what can’t be denied is that they keep your body extremely healthy from the inside and help maintain blood sugar levels, cholesterol, etc.
To Conclude
It’s important to remember that our bodies are our temples. Whatever we feed them will impact us in the future. Therefore, we should eat right and keep ourselves healthy. Simple dietary improvements like the switch to whole grains mentioned above can save us from a ton of chronic diseases. So why not take a few baby steps towards a better life?
