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The health benefits of eating extra fruits and vegetables are well established: for years, children have been told that an apple a day will keep the doctor away.

But now, scientists have identified a diet promoting a much wider range of foods, including fish, poultry and nuts, that they say is much more effective at cutting the risk of heart attacks.

The Dash (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) dieting plan reduces the chances of suffering from heart disease by 18 per cent over 10 years, compared with an average American diet. People who simply up their consumption of fruits and vegetables see an 11 per cent decreased risk, a study shows.

Recommended by the American Heart Association, Dash – Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension – lowers blood pressure and cuts levels of artery- clogging cholesterol.

Rich in fruit and vegetables, it also focuses on low-fat dairy products, whole grains, nuts, poultry and fish. Fats, sweets, red meat and sugary drinks should be avoided.

Dr Marilyn Glenville, a leading nutritionist, said: ‘Cholesterol causes a problem when it oxidises in the body and the antioxidants in fruits and vegetables prevent that from happening.

People should try to eat as many different colours as possible: they need to eat a rainbow.’ Whole grains, said Dr Glenville, provide fibre, which ‘mixes with the cholesterol in the intestine, helping to push it out of the body’.

Poultry, fish and nuts are good sources of protein, but lower in saturated fats than red meat.

The dash diet

Dr Glenville told the Independent-They also contain more omega 3, which controls inflammation of the arteries and, in some cases, of the heart itself.

‘That inflammation, along with cholesterol, is often the cause of heart disease. Sugary drinks and sweets have the opposite effect.’

A team of US researchers tested the Dash diet’s worth on men and women deemed to be at risk of high blood pressure.

One group ate a ‘normal’ American diet of foods high in fat and low in minerals, another ate similar food but also got their five servings of fruit and vegetables a day.

A third followed the Dash diet and had all their meals prepared for them for two months.

Blood pressure and cholesterol were measured at the start and end of the study and used to calculate individual risk of heart problems over the next ten years.

Regularly eating five fruit and veg a day would cut the risk by 7 per cent.

The Dash diet, however, was more than twice as good.

How the diet works…

Fruits and vegetables

Antioxidants from fruit and vegetables are the diet’s most important components. Cholesterol becomes a problem when it oxidises, but this can be stemmed by antioxidants. The pigments in fruits carry different antioxidants.

Low-fat dairy foods

The diet maximises the positive effects of fruits and vegetables, and limits the damage caused by saturated fats in dairy foods by eating low-fat versions.

Whole grains

When the fibre from whole grains is stripped away from foods, they are digested more quickly, causing a rise in blood glucose and bad cholesterol.

Poultry, fish and nuts versus red meat and sugary foods

The former do not have as much saturated fat as the latter and contain Omega-3. Sugar enters the bloodstream quickly, causing high blood glucose and high cholesterol.

Dash Diet website…..

People who do puzzles and crosswords may stave off dementia longer but experience a more rapid decline once the disease sets in, a study suggests.

While there has long been speculation that “exercising” your brain could protect against Alzheimer’s, there has been little evidence to back this up.

Now US researchers who followed more than 1,000 people suggest the more mentally active may delay the disease.

But once symptoms appeared, decline was quicker, the research suggested.

The team from the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago recruited 1,157 people aged over 65 in the early 1990s.

The 12-year study evaluated mental activities of 1,157 people 65 years or older without dementia at the start. Participants were assessed at baseline, and then for Alzheimer’s at the six-year mark. Then, every three years, they answered questions about how often they participated in activities such as listening to the radio, reading, playing games and going to a museum. They were rated on a five-point cognitive activity scale. The more often people participated in mentally stimulating exercises, the more points they tallied.

Crosswords may stave off dementia

The study found that the rate of cognitive decline in people without dementia was reduced by 52% for each point on the cognitive activity scale. For those with Alzheimer’s, however, the average rate of decline per year increased by 42% for each point on the cognitive activity scale.

“The rationale the authors are using is somewhat similar to what people call ‘cognitive reserve,’ ” says Ron Peterson, director of Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

He says the theory is that in the active mind, the brain creates new neural pathways when damage occurs to circumvent the problems.

Alzheimer’s expert Steven DeKosky, dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, uses this metaphor: The active brain is like a piece of good wood that’s been varnished and revarnished over the years. The inactive brain has fewer coats or lower-quality varnish, he says.

“You don’t get symptomatic until you sand down to the bare wood,” DeKosky says.

Wilson says researchers don’t fully understand why active-minded people suffer such a rapid decline once they develop Alzheimer’s, but the study shows the advantages of using your brain because of the early benefits.

That the active-minded person spends less total time in a cognitively disabled and demented state is “a universal good thing,” Wilson says. “It’s good for the affected person, good for their family and friends and good for our public health system.”

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