Making tiny changes to your daily food consumption is all it takes to
have a big impact on your health, a study has found.
Experts say around 20,000 lives a year could be saved if Britons
simply tweaked their diet to include one gram less of salt a day, an
extra piece of fruit and less saturated fat.
The findings will encourage those put off dieting by elaborate and
often confusing regimes such as the Atkins diet, which has four
'phases' and is based on consuming protein-rich food.
Dieticians warn that Britons need to transform their eating habits,
with around a quarter of the population classed as obese - so fat
their health is in danger. According to current trends, that could
rise to more than half the population by 2050.
The research by teams at Oxford and Liverpool universities, compared
dietary patterns against deaths from heart disease in Britons aged 25
to 84.
The condition is the country's biggest killer with 270,000 Britons
suffering a heart attack every year.
The scientists then calculated the impact of lower cholesterol and
blood pressure among the population caused by small adjustments to our
diets.
Excess salt is known to increase blood pressure, while saturated fats
and trans fats - the so- called 'hard' fats found mostly in foods such
as pies, biscuits and ready meals - can damage blood vessels,
increasing the risk of a clot that can cause a heart attack or stroke.
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