By: Maayan S. Heller for Heart1It’s good for you! It’s bad for you! These days it’s hard to keep track of what foods, herbs and supplements you’re supposed to add to, or subtract from, your diet. The equation seems to change every week.
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Heart-Healthy Consumption
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), eating right can help reduce three of the major risk factors for heart attacks (high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol and excess body weight). In October 2000, the AHA released new dietary guidelines in its Eating Plan for Healthy Americans.
Following this eating plan will help you achieve and maintain a healthy eating pattern. Every meal doesn't have to meet all the guidelines; it's important to apply the guidelines to your overall eating pattern over at least several days.
Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables. At least 5 servings/day.
Eat a variety of grain products, including whole grains. At least 6 servings/day.
Include fat-free and low-fat milk products, fish, legumes (beans), skinless poultry and lean meats.
Balance the number of calories you eat with the number you use each day. To find that number, multiply the number of pounds you weigh now by 15 calories. This represents the average number of calories used in one day if you're moderately active. If you get very little exercise, multiply your weight by 13 instead of 15.
Maintain a level of physical activity that keeps you fit and matches the number of calories you eat.
Limit your intake of foods that are high in calories or low in nutrition, including foods like soft drinks and candy that are high in sugars.
Limit foods that are high in saturated fat, trans fat and/or cholesterol, such as full-fat milk products, fatty meats, tropical oils, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and egg yolks.
Eat less than 6 grams of salt (sodium chloride) per day (2,400 milligrams of sodium).
Have no more than one alcohol drink per day if you're a woman and no more than two if you're a man.
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And in yet another confusing adjustment on this topic, the FDA recently announced it was rejecting a company’s claim that green tea reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).
But isn’t green tea good for you?
Despite widespread campaigns promoting its health benefits, the FDA reviewed several studies and concluded that there “is no credible scientific evidence to support qualified health claims about consumption of green tea or green tea extract and reduction of a number of risk factors associated with CVD.”
“I didn’t expect the FDA would approve it and I wasn’t surprised,” said Chun-Su Yuan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Tang Center for Herbal Medicine Research at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine.
According to Dr. Yuan, although the potential health benefits of green tea have been marketed pretty strongly, studies have yet to confirm any of these.
“Many researchers make the claims that green tea has wide health benefits,” he explains. “But the medicinal efficacy of green tea has not yet been demonstrated.”
Part of the problem, he adds, is a general lack of well-designed, controlled clinical trials. This point is the crux of the FDA’s assessment.
In its letter of denial, which came from Barbara O. Schneeman, PhD, director of the Office of Nutritional Products, Labeling, and Dietary Supplements of the agency’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, the FDA indicated that its conclusions were reached after reviewing numerous and varied studies on green tea.
The studies reviewed had mixed results, leading the FDA to determine the data did not irrefutably support a relationship between consumption of green tea, or its extract, and reduced CVD risk.
But you shouldn’t take the rejection of this claim as a rejection of green tea in general.
The FDA doesn't suggest that green tea is unhealthy, only that science hasn't proven that drinking it cuts down your risk of CVD.
“Many reports indicate that it could be beneficial,” Dr. Yuan explains, “it’s [just that its] real efficacy remains to be proven,” he said.
At the end of the rejection letter, the FDA noted that it plans to evaluate new information and research should it become available, acknowledging that “scientific information is subject to change, as are consumer consumption patterns.”
So what should you, the consumer, know about green tea now?
According to Dr. Yuan, “green tea, in general, is entirely safe to drink and health benefits may indeed exist.”
But he also points out that there is a great deal of variation and inconsistencies among green tea products, so it is important to look for certain indicators of quality control, such as domestically produced tea products.
“One of the reasons research is so inconclusive is that there are so many variables affecting the quality of the tea,” he explains. He warns that some imported teas may not be safe to drink because the leaves may have been sprayed with pesticides or other contaminants, for example.
So don’t stop drinking green tea if you like it, though it might make sense to avoid thinking of it as a cure-all remedy or magic health potion.
And perhaps take your green tea – or at least the advice you get about it – with a grain of salt.
