Best diet? Just what you’d think—healthy whole foods

Emory Heart and Vascular Center cardiologist Laurence Sperling, president of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology, and a panel of nutrition experts have ranked some of the country’s most popular diets. The U.S. News & World Report’s Best Diets 2016 rankings took into consideration short- and longterm weight loss, ease of following, nutrition, safety, and performance as a diabetes and heart diet.

The DASH diet was named Best Diet Overall, while the new MIND diet came in at second overall, tying with the TLC diet.

“The MIND diet is a healthy, sensible plan supported by science,” says Sperling. “It takes two proven diets—DASH and Mediterranean— and promotes foods in each that specifically affect brain health.” These foods include green leafy vegetables, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, poultry, olive oil, and wine. The MIND diet recommends avoiding foods from five unhealthy groups: red meats, butter and stick margarine, cheeses, pastries and sweets, and fried or fast food. Sperling offers three key things to remember:

1

Find a diet you can maintain. e more restrictive a diet, the less likely a person can adhere to it long-term. While fad diets or diets very low in fat or very low in carbs have short-term potential bene ts, they are di cult to follow over time.

2

Make your diet part of a larger, healthier lifestyle e word “diet” comes from the Latin word “dieta,” which really means a way of life, not just a way of eating. Healthy, well-proportioned eating, walking or physical activity on most days of the week, keeping an ideal body weight—maintaining these behaviors is key throughout your life.

3

Balanced diets focus on healthy fats and healthy proteins. Fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy are good choices, as are lots of sh, nuts, seeds, and legumes. Unprocessed carbohydrates can be included in small portions. en, sparingly, things like sweets, alcohol, and meats.

Getting Older Every Day

For more information on Best Diets 2016, go to health.usnews.com/best-diet.

Emory is looking for 100,000 adults in Atlanta to take part in a study of something we’re all doing, like it or not: aging. The Emory Healthy Aging Study is an online study that aims to learn about aging and age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and diabetes. Anyone 18 and older may participate, and the time commitment is minimal—participants are asked to periodically complete an online health history questionnaire and various memory tests. Select individuals will be invited to participate in other, more involved studies. To learn more about the Emory Healthy Aging Study, go to healthyaging.emory.edu ■