AF and the best food for it

[MiniMeGreen]

Hi folks,

here is a great source of infomation on healthy eating in generall and for AF in particular. You go to nutritionfacts.org/ and look e.g. for Atrial Fibrillation.

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM has dedicated his life to healthy eating.

[Rainfern]

Hi, the video link isn’t working for me - what should we Google?

[MiniMeGreen in reply to Rainfern]

Try this one please nutritionfacts.org/video/th...

[Rainfern in reply to MiniMeGreen]

Interesting what he says about low carb diet. This fits the lifestyle change approach I found with Second Nature (NHS recommend diet app). I arrived at a sensible weight without once counting carbs or worrying about healthy fat intake. BP, cholesterol, blood sugar all excellent. I have been an occasional meat eating vegetarian for years - but the change to a mostly plant based diet is really difficult for some to contemplate and the quality of instant vegetarian and vegan food in the supermarkets is surely designed to put people off plant based food for life!

[Sixtyslidogirl]

Thanks MiniMeGreen . It chimes in with increasing scientific evidence on mostly plant based. Some similar research has just been publicised on the Zoe nutrition plan. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podca...

Nothing is ‘forbidden’ but it is strongly pro-plant based.

[TopBiscuit]

Thanks for sharing! However, what he's primarily talking about is the benefits of a plant based diet in treating hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and obesity.....all of which are risk factors for AF, rather than about AFib itself. Unfortunately this isn't much help to those who have AFib without any of those co-morbidities.

He also states: "... commonly used blood pressure and cholesterol lowering medications provide low absolute risk reduction of cardiovascular events...and pose significant risk of adverse events" which is quite a radical statement! So y'all......stop your meds and go vegan. Simples! 🙂

[Auriculaire]

Vegan diets can only be healthy if people are actually really knowledgeable about nutrition and take a great deal of care cooking from scratch and planning each meal to ensure they are getting enough nutrients. The simple reason for this is because when you compare weight for weight plant and animal foods you will find the proportion of vitamins and minerals and other essential nutrients are far more concentrated in animal products. Anybody who relies on vegetarian or vegan ready meals is going to be just as undernourished if not more so than somebody who eats regular ready meals. We evolved to be omnivores. We have the dentition and guts of omnivores. The proportions of animal products / non animal products in a diet can be argued about . Most nutrition studies are rubbish as they involve asking people about what they have been eating . The only ones that have any reliability are those done on captive populations who get no choice as to what they eat and cannot misremember it or lie about it. Vegan food lacks essential vitamins like B12 andD . Anaemia caused by low iron is common among vegans unless they are supplementing.

[LaceyLady in reply to Auriculaire]

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Having been a multi-disciplined Complementary Therapist of 26 yrs, clinical Reflexologist I have rarely seen a healthy vegetarian, many I’ve come across eat appallingly, cutting out all manner of food without really researching how to eat well to keep healthy. Very important is Vitamin B12 that comes from meat and Marmite.

One woman patients skin was dry and the colour of parchment, no fat reserves, no shape, thought she was strong as she had been a dancer till I showed her just how weak her muscle were using Kinesiology.

[Auriculaire in reply to LaceyLady]

That doesn't surprise me. My son in law has been a vegan since uni. He swears he is perfectly healthy but the last time he came to visit us I thought he looked grey and he spent inordinate amounts of time in the loo. You only gave to look at the nutritional contents of food to see that you would have to eat very large quantities of veg and grains to get a fraction of the nutrients that are in a small piece of fish for example. When we visited South India we ate the local vegan food. It was delicious but we were constantly hungry as we could not physically eat enough. Our driver ate 3/4 times the amount we did. Despite a largely vegan or vegetarian diet Hindu Indians often have high levels of diabetes and heart disease. My ex GP in the UK who I keep in touch with is a South Indian Brahmin and has never eaten any other animal products her whole life except milk and cheese . She is not healthy at all and her emails are tales of woe about how awful she feels.

[MiniMeGreen in reply to Auriculaire]

However, to my knowledge their diabetes, heart disease, etc stem from sugar.

[LaceyLady in reply to Auriculaire]

That is because they fill up on sweet carbs. Their celebrations are full of sugary pastries etc. Chai laden with sugar 🤮

[Auriculaire in reply to LaceyLady]

Yes but also masses of white rice.

[LaceyLady in reply to Auriculaire]

Well, where are the anorexics these days?? They’ve become vegan.

What hacks me off - I sudden went T2 dire betic over night, it seemed. Approximately 6-8 wks after a covid booster. Many eateries cater for vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, food allergies but NOT low carb T2D’s 😡😤

Nightmare going on holiday or out to eat 😤

[Auriculaire in reply to LaceyLady]

Take your holidays in rural France. Vegetarians do very poorly in restaurants and vegans even worse. Most French people here in the back of beyond have no real idea of what veganism is! 20 years ago when trying to get restaurant food for our vegan son in law we would get puzzled or horrified looks when we explained that he ate no animal products at all so an omelette was no good. Some restaurants have a veggie option but it is rare.

[Auriculaire in reply to LaceyLady]

I read about others becoming T2 after covid jabs.

[CDreamer in reply to Auriculaire]

Agree that any processed meals or Ultra processed foods are the WORST! You do need to know exactly what you are doing with vegan/vegetarian diets but I know a lot of people who do well cooking from good quality produce.

[MiniMeGreen in reply to CDreamer]

I completely agree. Also I'm not against meat, but it should come from a healthy animal kept and fed well, certainly not a cow fed by corn or soy and pumped with antibiotics and/or other drugs (anabolics or hormons).