Good for the heart, good for the Earth: this is how authors are presenting the latest results from a research study that calculates the optimal diet for cardiovascular disease prevention and, at the same time, halves greenhouse gas emissions. Carried out in participation with CMCC, the study offers concrete tools for a practical dietary pattern, which does not exclude any foods but indicates optimal frequencies and quantities for each of them, and which is suitable for a healthy adult population.

Daily food choices are directly responsible not only for individual health, but also for global health. When inadequate, they cause the development of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases – the leading cause of death in Europe and the world – and at the same time the emission of greenhouse gases. Despite consolidated evidence on the harmful potential of food choices, the effort aimed at implementing the transition to a healthy, climate-friendly diet has still not managed to live up to this urgency.

Through the multidisciplinary collaboration of several Italian institutes, including the CMCC Foundation and the Diabetes, Nutrition, and Metabolic Disease Unit of the University of Naples ‘Federico II’, researchers have produced up-to-date scientific data that has made it possible to elaborate a practical dietary model suitable for the entire healthy adult population. The adoption of such a diet would bring benefits that have been quantified in a study published in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease.

The study demonstrates that a weekly diet that does not exclude any food types, but rather includes all of them in the optimal frequencies and quantities for cardiovascular prevention (e.g. fresh vegetables, wholegrain cereals and yogurt every day, legumes and fish up to 4 times a week, eggs, cheese and white meat no more than 3 times a week, red meat, high glycemic index cereals or potatoes no more than once a week, etc.) is also able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in relation to current European consumption by 48.6%.

In particular, the study outlines:

• a detailed weekly food plan of the desirable dietary pattern for the optimization of cardiovascular disease prevention, based on the data available in the literature;
• an assessment of the nutritional adequacy of this food plan, i.e. the data documenting its ability to ensure the intake of all macro- and micro-nutrients in the quantities recommended by EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), better than the diet currently practiced by Europeans;
• the climate impact of the weekly plan’s food consumption, in terms of associated greenhouse gas emissions.

“The strength of this model,” says Annalisa Giosué, a medical doctor specialised in Food Science and lead author of the study, “is that it is nutritionally adequate and compatible with a varied diet, which includes abundance of plant-based foods such as legumes, whole grains, fruit and vegetables, but also varying amounts of animal-based foods such as dairy products, fish and meat, and therefore not involving drastic renunciations by people who choose to adopt it.”

Marta Antonelli, a researcher at the CMCC Foundation and among the authors of the study, adds: “This tool, if adequately spread – in particular among health professionals, but also in other strategic sectors as well as among the public at large – could substantially facilitate the implementation of a dietary model capable of optimizing the prevention of cardiovascular diseases and of reducing the climate impact of food choices with immediate effect.”

For more information: Giosuè A, Recanati F, Calabrese I, Dembska K, Castaldi S, Gagliardi F, Vitale M, Vaccaro O, Antonelli M, Riccardi G. Good for the heart, good for the Earth: proposal of a dietary pattern able to optimize cardiovascular disease prevention and mitigate climate change. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2022 Aug 9:S0939-4753(22)00327-1. doi: 10.1016/j.numecd.2022.08.001