Posted on 12/17/2004 6:50:30 AM PST by Pharmboy
LONDON (Reuters) - If you enjoy good food and don't like the idea of taking pills to reduce the risks of heart attack or stroke, it could be time to try the Polymeal.
Foods ranging from wine to fish and fruits and vegetables have been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, so Dr Oscar Franco, a public health expert at the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, decided to combine them in one meal.
If people over 50 years old consumed roughly the daily equivalent of the Polymeal, the researchers calculated, they could slash the odds of suffering from heart disease, one of the world's biggest killers, by 76 percent.
"The message of our paper is that a healthy lifestyle and a good balanced diet is a good alternative to prevent cardiovascular disease," Franco said in an interview.
He and his team searched scientific literature to find foods that have a proven protective effect against cardiovascular disease and then used a mathematical model to determine how much the combined effects of the individual ingredients would reduce the risk of the illness. The results are reported in the British Medical Journal
The Polymeal consists of wine, fish, dark chocolate, fruit and vegetables, garlic and almonds. The ingredients should be taken daily, apart from fish which could be eaten about four times a week, as part of a balanced diet.
Wine and chocolate must be consumed in moderation.
The scientists said the results of eating the Polymeal would be most dramatic for men, whom they estimated would live 6.6 years longer in total than their counterparts not eating the meal. They would also delay the onset of heart disease by 9 years.
Women would gain nearly 5 years and keep heart disease at bay for about 8 years.
The scientists devised the Polymeal as a non-pharmaceutical alternative to a Polypill, a combination of drugs taken in one dose to cut heart disease, which was proposed in 2003.
Polymeals, combined with exercise and non-smoking, are the ingredients for a healthy lifestyle to prevent heart disease, Franco added.
In a separate report in the journal, renowned chef Raymond Blanc created a three-course dinner of watercress soup, grilled fillet of mackerel with winter root vegetables, chickpeas, toasted almonds and garlic and chocolate mousse, based on the Polymeal ingredients.
To a long and happy life, Freepers!
Dutch ping...
Will they denature the wine? I want the health benefits, but I am allergic to alcohol.
No, having the burger is not your problem...it's not having a glass of wine with it to help your heart :-D
Nope. People will still pack in the Chinese buffets.
I was in a package store the other day, and saw several varieties of "no-alcohol" wine. The wine equivalent of O'Douls, if you will. Hadn't ever seen it before, but there it was.
Actually, Laz, red grape juice has been shown to have some health benefits.
Now if we could just figure out how to reduce the mercury content in the fish, we'd be set.
I know, I know! Fish, steamed in water with garlic, dipped in melted dark chocolate, rolled in crushed almonds, served atop a bed of greens, and garnished with an orange slice! That explains the wine! I'd have to have an entire bottle of Chianti to get down a meal like that!
AND we haven't even mentioned the breath!
Very creative...perhaps if we could save the dark chocolate for dessert, we would have a real winner!
Drink a couple of glasses of 100 % grape juice a day. Same benefits.
Awwww, man!
As always the guys in the white coats make this so very complicated.
All you have to do is feed the fish, fruit, dark chocolate, vegetables, garlic and almonds. Then you eat the fish and drink some wine.
Alternately you could also feed the fish wine and just knock him out when he gets drunk and then eat the fish.
Eat healthy, excercise...die anyway.
"chocolate must be consumed in moderation"
Ooops lol
Wasn't there a study that dark grape juice has a lot of the benefits of wine?
You could put half red grape juice and half sparkling mineral water into a wine glass. I bet that would taste quite good.
Still looking for Chocolate Wine . . .
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