Development of a diet pattern assessment tool for coronary heart disease risk reduction

Eating healthy, nutritious food can help lower your chances of having heart problems like heart attacks or strokes.

In Indian men living in cities who have high cholesterol, those who eat healthier according to a special diet score tend to have less body fat, lower weight, and less body inflammation — and those with the worst scores have the highest levels of these risk factors, suggesting the diet score might help spot heart disease risks.

Scientists created a new food scorecard just for people in India that checks how healthy their eating habits are by looking at things like how much rice or bread they eat, whether they have sweets after meals, what kind of milk fat they use, and where they get their healthy fats — and it counts food in portions per 1,000 calories to make it easier to report accurately.

In young to middle-aged Indian men living in cities who have high triglycerides and low good cholesterol, eating more fiber, protein, and vitamin C while eating less fat and sugar is linked to a higher score on a special diet quiz—meaning the quiz might be good at spotting healthy eating habits that help heart health.

In men in Indian cities who have high cholesterol, eating a healthier diet for 12 weeks might help lower a marker of body inflammation, but we can’t be sure yet because the results weren’t strong enough to count as proof.