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The Study

Global, regional and national burden of ischemic heart disease attributable to suboptimal diet, 1990-2023: a Global Burden of Disease study.

In simple terms

This study looked at lots of people around the world and found that those who eat less healthy foods (like not enough fruit or too much salt) tend to have more heart disease. But it doesn't prove that eating bad food makes you get heart disease—it just shows they often happen together.

33%

Analysis score

33/ 85

Maximum 85 for a systematic review with meta-analysis.

Where the score came from

Reporting0
Methodology0
Publication100
Statistical54
Study type (basis of the score)
Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis
Level 2a - Systematic review of cohort studies
What’s the bottom line?

Not eating enough healthy foods like nuts, whole grains, and fruit, and eating too much salt, is making a lot of people die from heart disease.

Where does this study sit?

Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)

Max 100

Randomized Trials

Max 90

Reviews of Cohort Studies

Max 85

Cohort Studies

Max 72

Reviews of Case-Control Studies

Max 63

Case-Control Studies

Max 58

Cross-Sectional & Case Series

Max 50

Expert Opinion

Max 5
StrongerWeaker
Reviews of Cohort Studies
Level 2a
33

33 / 100

Quality score

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of cohort studies. They sit above a single cohort study but below a single randomized trial, because the underlying evidence is still observational.

Cannot establish causation

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Key takeaways

Summary

Based on the study abstract and findings.

  1. 1Yes — this is a huge number, equivalent to the entire population of a large country dying from preventable diet-related heart disease each year.
  2. 2In 2023, bad diets caused 4 million heart disease deaths and 97 million years of poor health worldwide.
  3. 3Not eating nuts/seeds was the biggest problem, causing nearly 10 deaths per 100,000 people.

Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data

Publication

Journal

Nature medicine

Year

2026

Authors

Sooji Lee, Hayeon Lee, Yejun Son, J. Shin, Hasan Aalruz, Y. Abate, C. Abbafati, Nasir Abbas, Elahe Abbaspour, H. Abbastabar, S. ElHafeez, P. Abdi, Wakgari Mosisa Abdisa, Mohammad Abdollahi, M. Abdoun, R. Abdulkader, Auwal Abdullahi, O. Abiodun, O. Abiodun, R. Aboagye, S. Abohashem, Lucas Guimarães Abreu, Dariush Abtahi, A. Abubakar, Bilyaminu Abubakar, Eman Abu-Gharbieh, Hana J. Abukhadijah, Salahdein Aburuz, Ahmed Abu-Zaid, M. M. Adane, I. Y. Addo, O. Adebayo, Kamoru A. Adedokun, R. Adedoyin, C. Adetunji, J. B. Adetunji, T. AdeyeOluwa, Kishor Adhikari, U. Adiga, Qorinah Estiningtyas Sakilah Adnani, A. Afolabi, Arya Afrooghe, M. Afzal, Saira Afzal, Prerna Agarwal, Feleke Doyore Agide, Williams Agyemang-Duah, B. Ahinkorah, Aqeel Ahmad, Danish Ahmad, Firdos Ahmad, Muayyad M. Ahmad, Sajjad Ahmad, Ali Ahmadi, Ayman Ahmed, H. Ahmed, M. Ahmed, Mushood Ahmed, Syed Anees Ahmed, Marjan Ajami, Budi Aji, M. Akkaif, Alaa Amiry, S. Awaidy, M. Qadire, T. Alalwan, Z. Al-Aly, K. Alam, Fahmi Y. Al-Ashwal, Mohammed ALBashtawy, Khalifah A. Aldawsari, W. Aldhaleei, A. Algammal, F. Alhalaiqa, Abid Ali, Akhtar Ali, Endale Alemayehu Ali, Mohammad Ali, M. Ali, Rafat Ali, Syed Shujait Shujait Ali, Waad Ali, Gianfranco Alicandro, S. M. Alif, Samah W. Al-Jabi, Syed Mohamed Aljunid, A. Alkhatib, Sabah Al-Marwani, Mohmmad Minwer Alnaeem, Mahmoud A. Alomari, Saleh A Alqahtani, Ahmad Alrawashdeh, S. Alrousan, Mohammed Alsabri, W. Alseragi, Z. Altaany, Awais Altaf, N. Alvis-Guzmán, Hassan Alwafi, M. Al-Wardat, Y. Al-Worafi, Safwat Aly, Mohammad Sharif Ibrahim Alyahya, K. Alzoubi, Masoud Mohammadi, Reza Amani, A. Amegah, T. Amin, Hubert Amu, D. Amugsi, Ga Amusa, R. Ancuceanu, Abhishek Anil, Rockson Ansong, Saeid Anvari, S. Anwar, A. Anyasodor, J. Arabloo, A. Aravkin, D. Areda, B. Armocida, Johan Ärnlöv, M. Arooj, A. Artamonov, Javed Ashraf, Tahira Ashraf, Bernard Kwadwo Yeboah Asiamah-Asare, A. Askarinejad, T. Astell-Burt, S. Athari, P. Atorkey, M. Awoke, A. Awotidebe, Lemessa Assefa A Ayana, M. Azhar, Shahkaar Aziz, H. Azizian, A. Azzam, D. Azzolino, G. B, G. R. Babu, Nasser Bagheri, Pegah Bahrami Taghanaki, Razieh Bahreini, Ruhai Bai, A. Baig, Jennifer L. Baker, Shankar M. Bakkannavar, Ovidiu Constantin Baltatu, Kiran Bam, Maciej Banach, Hansi Bansal, Mainak Bardhan, Till Bärnighausen, H. Barqawi, Lingkan Barua, Z. Basharat, Somaye Bashiri Aliabadi, Rehana Basri, Mohammad-Mahdi Bastan, S. Basu, Kavita Batra, M. Bayati, Mulat Tirfie Bayih, Priyamadhaba Behera, Asnake Gashaw Belayneh, U. Belgaumi, G. Bilgin, Michelle L. Bell, O. Bello, Isabela M. Benseñor, Catherine P. Benziger, Z. Berezvai, Alemshet Yirga Berhie, Habtamu B. Beyene, Kebede A. Beyene, A. Bhadoria, A. Bhagavathula, N. Bhala, Ravi G. Bharadwaj, Pankaj Bhardwaj, Sonu M M Bhaskar, A. Bhat, Vivek Bhat, G. K. Bhatti, Jasvinder Singh Bhatti, Rajbir Bhatti, Cem Bilgin, M. Birhan, Bijit Biswas, B. Bizzozero-Peroni, A. Boloor, Sri Harsha Boppana, Hamed Borhany, Jyoti Brahmaiah, Dejana Braithwaite, Michael Brauer, H. Brenner, Gabrielle Britton, Raffaele Bugiardini, Norma B. Bulamu, L. Bulto, Katrin Burkart, Yasser K. Bustanji, Z. Butt, Daniela Călina, L. Cámera, L. A. Campos, Ismael Campos-Nonato, A. Capodici, F. Carvalho, M. Carvalho, C. Castañeda-Orjuela, A. Catapano, Monica Cattafesta, M. Cattaruzza, L. Cegolon, Francieli Cembranel, E. Cenko, A. Cernigliaro, S. Chakraborty, Jeffrey Shi Kai Chan, R. Chandika, Shilpa Chandran, A. Chaudhary, Hana Chen, Hui Chen, Simiao Chen, N. Chew, Gerald Chi, Fatemeh Chichagi, Ritesh Chimoriya, Patrick R. Ching, Jesus Lorenzo Chirinos-Caceres, William C. S Cho, Dong-Woo Choi, Bryan Chong, Hou In Chou, Sonali Gajanan Choudhari, E. Chowdhury, Rajiv Chowdhury, D. Chu, I. Chukwu, S. Chung, Arrigo Francesco Giuseppe Cicero, Iolanda Cioffi, M. Criqui, N. Cruz-Martins, Xiaolin Cui, A. G. da Silva, Nour Dababo, O. Dadras, X. Dai, Zhaoli Dai, G. Damiani, Emanuele D’Amico, S. Darcho, Saswati Das, A. Dascălu, N. Dash, Cornelius Dassah, K. Davletov, Cristian Del Bo’, E. Denova-Gutiérrez, Ismail Dergaa, Emina Dervišević, Aragaw Tesfaw Desale, Vinoth Gnana Chellaiyan Devanbu, Devananda Devegowda, Syed Masudur Rahman Dewan, K. Dhama, M. Dhimal, M. Pumpo, Adriana Dima, Thao Huynh Phuong Do, C. B. do Prado, S. Doaei, P. Doegah, Sushil Dohare, O. Doshi, Rajkumar Doshi, Robert Kokou Dowou, V. Dsouza, Bruce B Duncan, A. Durães, Arkadiusz Marian Dziedzic, A. E’mar, Alireza Ebrahimi, F. Eghbali, Debela Ejeta, Michael Ekholuenetale, R. E. El Arab, I. El Bayoumy, I. Sayed, Mohamed Ahmed Eladl, I. Elgendy, Muhammed Elhadi, W. El‐Huneidi, Ashraf A El-Metwally, Adel B. Elmoselhi, M. Elnaem, Ibrahim Elsohaby, Chadi Eltaha, T. Emeto, S. Eskandarieh, Maysa Eslami, Juan Espinosa-Montero, Farshid Etaee, Adewale Oluwaseun Fadaka, I. Fadhil, A. Fagbamigbe, A. Fahim, S. Fahimi, I. Fakhradiyev, Luca Falzone, Seyed Nooredin Faraji, Mohammad Fareed, Jacopo Farina, S. Farina, C. Farinha, MoezAlIslam Ezzat Mahmoud Faris, Hossein Farrokhpour, Timur Fazylov, Alireza Feizkhah, G. Fekadu, Xiaoqi Feng, R. Fernández-Jiménez, N. Ferreira, G. Fetensa, Bikila Regassa Feyisa, Florian Fischer, MO Folayan, Daniela Fortuna, Matteo Foschi, Maryam Fotouhi, Amina Fraij, S. G., Péter Gaál, M. Gadanya, A. Gaidhane, Abduzhappar Gaipov, Yaseen Galali, S. Gallus, W. G. Gastélum Espinoza, R. Gautam, M. W. Gebregergis, T. G. Gebremeskel, Lemma Getacher, Molla Getie, Delaram J. Ghadimi, F. Ghadirian, Kazem Ghaffari, M. Ghafourifard, S. Ghamari, Mohammadreza Ghasemi, R. Ghazy, M. Gholamalizadeh, Zainab Gholami, Zeinab Ghorbani, Pooyan Ghorbani Vajargah, A. Gil, Tiffany K. Gill, Alemea girmay, Logan M. Glasstetter, L. Göbölös, Mahaveer Golechha, Pouya Goleij, A. Goulart, A. Grada, Michale Grivna, Giuseppe Grosso, Ashna Grover, Habtamu Alganeh Guadie, Zhongyang Guan, G. Guarducci, Mohammed Ibrahim Mohialdeen Gubari, Avirup Guha, Snigdha Gulati, D. Gunawardane, Bhawna Gupta, R. Gupta, Sapna Gupta, Veera Gupta, V. K. Gupta, V. Gupta, R. S. Gutiérrez-Murillo, Dagim Habteyesus, Mostafa Hadei, Najah R. Hadi, Zahra Hadian, D. Haile, R. Hamadeh, N. Hamdy, G. Hankey, Fahad Hanna, Obaid I Haque, Kassandra L. Harding, A. Hargono, N. I. Harlianto, J. M. Haro, Eka Mishbahatul Marah Has, H. Hasani, Reza Hashempour, Mohammad Hashem Hashempur, M. Hasnain, Amr Hassan, I. Hassan, Nageeb Hassan, Rasmus J. Havmoeller, S. Hay, Khezar Hayat, Youssef Hbid, Jiawei He, Qiang He, Jeffrey J. Hebert, G. Heidari, Mehdi Hemmati, B. Herrera-Serna, Y. Hiraike, Mai Hoang, Ramesh Holla, Md. Belal Hossain, Seyed Kianoosh Hosseini, Hassan Hosseinzadeh, M. Hostiuc, S. Hostiuc, Junjie Huang, Javid Hussain, H. Huynh, Ramzi Ibrahim, U. Ibrahim, Anel Ibrayeva, Nayu Ikeda, A. Ikiroma, O S Ilesanmi, Irena Ilic, Milena Ilic, M. Imam, M. Immurana, Arit Inok, M. Iqhrammullah, Benni Iskandar, M. Islam, N. Ismail, H. Iso, G. Isola, M. Iwagami, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Vinothini J, Louis Jacob, A. Jafarzadeh, N. Jahanmehr, H. Jahrami, A. Jain, A. A. Jairoun, M. Jakovljevic, Mohamed Jalloh, Safayet Jamil, Talha Jawaid, Sathish Kumar Jayapal, S. Jayaram, R. Jayasinghe, Felix K. Jebasingh, Gwang-Hun Jeong, B. Jeswani, Anil K Jha, Zixiang Ji, Mohammad Jokar, J. B. Jonas, Nitin Joseph, Charity Ehimwenma Joshua, J. Jozwiak, M. Jürisson, Malik E Juweid, Anupam Jyoti, Alia Kabir, Z. Kabir, A. Kakkar, Sanjay Kalra, Ashwin Kamath, Ramat T. Kamorudeen, S. Kankam, E. Kanmiki, E. Karagiannidis, P. Karakasis, Aliasghar Karimi, Y. Karimi, Sahand Karimzadhagh, F. Kashoo, Hengameh Kasraei, J. Kauppila, G. Kayode, Sina Kazemian, Shemsu Kedir, T. Keflie, Jaimon T. Kelly, Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot, M. Keykhaei, I. Khaing, H. Khajuria

2 citations
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