Low-carb and low-fat diets must focus on high-quality choices for heart health benefits

Key takeaways:

A study following 200,000 people for decades revealed new data on the importance of food quality for heart health.

PCPs should focus on their patients’ macronutrient quality, a researcher said.

ORLANDO — For heart health, food quality matters just as much as a dietary pattern, according to presenters at the annual NUTRITION meeting.

“Low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets have been widely promoted, yet their long-term effects on heart disease remain debated,” Zhiyuan Wu, PhD , a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Nutrition, told Healio. “We aimed to evaluate how the quality and food sources within these diets affect heart disease risk and shape the metabolic profiles.”

For heart health, following a low-fat or low-