Dietary Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease in Women: The Finnish Mental Hospital Study

Abstract

A controlled intervention trial, with the purpose of testing the hypothesis that the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) could be decreased by the use of a serum-cholesterol-lowering (SCL) diet, was carried out in two mental hospitals near Helsinki in 1959-71. The subjects were hospitalized middle-aged women. One of the hospitals received the SCL diet, ie a diet low in saturated fats and cholesterol and relatively high in poly-unsaturated fats, while the other served as the control with a normal hospital diet. Six years later the diets were reversed, and the trial was continued another six years. The use of the SCL diet was associated with markedly lowered serum cholesterol values. The incidence of CHD, as measured by the appearance of certain electrocardiographic patterns and by the occurrence of coronary deaths, was in both hospitals during the SCL-diet periods lower than during the normal-diet periods. The differences, however, failed to reach statistical significance. An examination of a number of potential confounding variables indicated that the changes in them were small and failed to account for the reduction in the incidence of CHD. Although the results of this trial do not permit firm conclusions, they support the idea that also among female populations the SCL diet exerts a preventive effect on CHD.

Omega-6 Fatty Acids and Risk for Cardiovascular Disease

“…66 Of the remaining 4 studies, 1 reported a significant 45% reduction in risk, 59 whereas no significant effect was seen in the others. 60,61,65 These trials tested the effect of replacing saturated fatty acids; no randomized trial has reported the effects of replacing carbohydrate or protein with omega-6 PUFAs on CHD risk. Although limitations are present for each trial, the combined results of these studies and the observational trials provide evidence that replacing saturated fatty acid or refined carbohydrate (eg, sugars, white bread, white rice, potatoes) with omega-6 PUFAs reduces CHD risk.…”

Some problems with Cochrane reviews of diet and chronic disease

“…On the other hand, Hooper et al excluded the big Helsinki Mental Hospital Trial which was a large crossover trial in two long-stay hospitals (Turpeinen et al, 1979;Miettinen et al, 1983). First one, then after 7 y the other hospital implemented a reduced saturated, increased polyunsaturated fat diet across the institution, while the other hospital served the standard Finnish diet of the 1960s.…”

Interaction forces and membrane charge tunability: Oleic acid containing membranes in different pH conditions

“…Both saturated and trans fatty acids has been shown to increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases [3][4][5][6]. In contrast, unsaturated fatty acids have been shown to have a potentially therapeutic benefit for patients with type-2 diabetes [7], dementia [8], cystic fibrosis [9], and arguably to reduce the risk of coronary heart diseases [10][11][12][13]. In particular, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) such as α-linolenic acid (omega-3) and linoleic acid (omega-6) have received the most attention as humans cannot synthesize either of these molecules.…”