Eating more fruits and veggies is an almost sure-fire way to prevent a heart attack. According to the preliminary results from a new study, inadequate consumption of fruit and vegetables could account for millions of deaths each year. The authors claim that roughly 1 in 7 cardiovascular deaths could be attributed to not eating enough fruit, and 1 in 12 cardiovascular deaths could be attributed to not eating enough vegetables.
Lead study author Victoria Miller, a postdoctoral researcher at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University: “Fruits and vegetables are a modifiable component of diet that can impact preventable deaths globally. Our findings indicate the need for population-based efforts to increase fruit and vegetable consumption throughout the world.”
It seems that some 1.8 million cardiovascular deaths were due to low fruit intake (1.3 million from stroke and over 520,000 from coronary heart disease) and around 1 million deaths due to low vegetable intake (200,000 from stroke and more than 800,000 from coronary heart disease) during 2010. The impact was most acute in countries with low average intake of both fruits and vegetables.
