How important is healthy eating after menopause to prevent heart disease?

Nutrition is always important. A healthy diet can lower your risk for heart disease by decreasing inflammation, lousy LDL cholesterol, and increasing healthy HDL, especially when combined with exercise and other healthy-lifestyle choices. So even if a trip to Greece or another country in the Mediterranean isn’t in the cards, you can still eat like you are there. That means, lean proteins (chicken, fish), heart-healthy fats (like DHA omega-3s), and tons of fruits and vegetables. And you can avoid the five food felons: 1) saturated fat, the kind found in meat, poultry skin, full-fat dairy foods, and palm and coconut oils; 2) trans fats, the ugly stuff still pumped into many snack foods and commercial desserts; 3) simple sugars; 4) added sugars in general, including all added syrups and 5) any grain that’s not a 100% whole grain. These five bad guys attack your heart and arteries the way a Stanley Cup play-off team bombards the opposing goalie before the buzzer. It ain’t pretty.

A diet that is high in fiber, low in fat, and full of healthy fruits and vegetables will keep weight off and provide strong nutrients for good health. Heart-healthy diets should be low in saturated fats and especially low in trans fat. Reducing these fats from your diet and increasing the nutrients in healthy fruits and vegetables will improve your heart heath and overall well-being.