Cardiovascular diseases: Overview

We've touched on the topic of cardiovascular diseases before (see, for example here, and here). To briefly recap, these conditions include heart attacks and strokes, and they are the leading cause of death globally - responsible for roughly 1 in every 3 deaths (1). In the United States, the numbers are even more alarming: one person dies from heart disease every 34 seconds, amounting to nearly 928,000 deaths per year (2).

In addition to these fatal events, about 1 in 5 heart attacks are silent - meaning the person remains unaware that a heart attack has occurred - yet these still inflict significant damage to the heart and other organs.

Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease

There are several risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease, some modifiable, other not. These include:

• High blood pressure
• High triglycerides
• High LDL ("bad") cholesterol
• Low HDL ("good") cholesterol
• Diabetes
• Being overweight or obese
• Age
• Genetics
• Smoking
• Physical inactivity
• Excessive alcohol use

You may be exhibiting one or more of these factors yourself. And if so, your doctor has likely prescribed medications to help control them - statins for cholesterol, antihypertensives for blood pressure, and so on. These drugs are undoubtedly helpful, providing immediate and often drastic reductions in the risk of cardiovascular disease. But they aren't the whole story when it comes to improving long-term health. 

If you look closely, most of these risk factors share a common thread: they're deeply connected to diet - or more broadly, to the nutrients we consume, whether through food or supplements. Your doctor might have already hinted at this by advising you to "eat better." Unfortunately, such advice is often vague at best, and not particularly actionable.

One reason is that most physicians aren't fully up to date with the latest research on nutritional health. Has any doctor ever recommended you increase your polyphenol intake? Probably not. Yet as modern science now shows, these plant compounds are remarkably effective at targeting key risk factors for cardiovascular disease - and they are also super easy to take.

Polyphenols and Cardiovascular Diseases: The Latest Research

Polyphenols are phytochemicals - compounds produced by plants - that sit at the very center of modern nutritional science. They've been shown to confer a broad range health benefits to humans. According to a recent publication (3), these include improvements in several major risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

The authors of that study (3) conducted analyses based on the data from the well-known PREDIMED study (4), which we've discussed the in more detail elsewhere. In the current study, the researchers investigated how dietary polyphenol intake affects heart health. Their findings were not only are statistically significant, but also hugely encouraging. They observed that daily polyphenol consumption was associated with:

• A reduction in waist circumference (i.e. weight loss)
• A reduction in blood pressure
• A reduction in triglycerides
• An increase in HDL ("good") cholesterol - and thus a reduction in the atherogenic factor (LDL/HDL ratio).

Together, these findings suggest that by positively influencing several of the risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease, daily polyphenol intake can help reduce the likelihood of developing it. 

Other studies have reported additional positive findings, reinforcing the role of polyphenols on heart health (see for example Figure 1 below). In fact, to date, there are now more than 7,000 scientific publications on the cardiovascular benefits of polyphenols - a testament to the potency and clinical relevance of these compounds.

Figure 1 (modified from (5)): Polyphenols inhibit a whole wide range of biological pathways that lead to cardiovascular disease.

Polyphenols can be easily obtained through diet by incorporating foods rich in these compounds - especially high-quality extra virgin olive oil, which also formed the foundation of many of the health benefits observed in studies (3) and (4) (we've prepared a short PDF reference list of such foods for your convenience). Alternatively, or complementarily, polyphenolic-rich supplements can provide a concentrated and convenient source. Whichever route you choose, make sure you don't miss out on the profound cardiovascular benefits of these remarkable molecules.

References

1) https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cardiovascular-diseases-(cvds)

2) https://www.cdc.gov/heart-disease/data-research/facts-stats/index.html

3)Castro-Barquero S et al. Dietary Polyphenol Intake is Associated with HDL-Cholesterol and A Better Profile of other Components of the Metabolic Syndrome: A PREDIMED-Plus Sub-Study. Nutrients. 2020 Mar 4;12(3):689. doi: 10.3390/nu12030689. PMID: 32143308; PMCID: PMC7146338.

4) Estruch R et al. PREDIMED Study Investigators. Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet Supplemented with Extra-Virgin Olive Oil or Nuts. N Engl J Med. 2018 Jun 21;378(25):e34. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1800389. Epub 2018 Jun 13. PMID: 29897866.

5) Iqbal I, Wilairatana P, Saqib F, Nasir B, Wahid M, Latif MF, Iqbal A, Naz R, Mubarak MS. Plant Polyphenols and Their Potential Benefits on Cardiovascular Health: A Review. Molecules. 2023 Sep 1;28(17):6403. doi: 10.3390/molecules28176403. PMID: 37687232; PMCID: PMC10490098.