Call our care team to help make healthy meals for seniors in your family.
Our aging care professionals in Burlington understand that it’s not easy to make the right choices for nutritious meals for seniors when the guidelines for nutrition appear to constantly change. We had been told that saturated fats from sources including butter, red meat and fried foods were harmful and could affect a person’s odds of developing heart issues, but later studies indicated there isn’t enough evidence that those who gave up these foods improved their heart health – and so, we went back to our old ways due to the green light to select butter over margarine.
And yet, as revealed in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, scientists clarify that the lack of evident results in reducing fatty foods is likely associated with equally poor nutritional choices selected in the place of those fats – like refined carbs. In the study, it was shared that those who replaced fatty foods in their diet with healthier options, like olive oil (a polyunsaturated fat) and whole grains did reduce their heart disease risk up to 25%.
As reported by Adela Hruby, one of many researchers in this study, “We know that people don’t just drop 10% of their calories…and not replace them with other things. What they’re adding in to replace what they’re not eating is really important.”
The study, led by Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, was amazingly extensive, tracking the results of just below 130,000 subjects of both genders over thirty years. Keeping an eye on nutritional choices and any heart-related conditions, it was determined that both women and men who ate carbohydrates in place of fatty foods were developing an almost equal threat of cardiovascular disease – a statistic missed in previous studies that had determined there unmistakably was no advantage to reducing the level of saturated fat in a meal plan.
So, what might be the takeaway from this report? Better heart health can be achieved by not simply decreasing the total amount of saturated fat in a dietary plan, but also by selecting healthier items instead of foods with lots of sugar or processed flour-based foods.
Advanced Home Health Care is always available to plan and prepare nutritious meals for seniors that are not just heafrt-healthy, but delicious, helping older adults lower their risk for heart attacks and disease. We are able to also assist senior adults with:
- Making wise dietary choices, and shopping for groceries so that fresh, nutritious foods are always available
- Medication reminders
- Carrying out physician-recommended activity programs
- Safe transportation to medical appointments as well as other outings
- And many other services focused on senior health
Reach out to our care team at 319.753.6270 and discover more about our West Point, Iowa home health care and the surrounding communities we serve in the counties of Des Moines, Lee, Henry, and Louisa. For more information about all of the areas we serve in Iowa, please visit our Service Areas page.
