How do high glycemic load diets influence coronary heart disease?
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Date
2015Author
Mathews, Marc J.
Liebenberg, Leon
Mathews, Edward H.
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Background: Diet has a significant relationship with the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Traditionally the effect
of diet on CHD was measured with the biomarker for low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. However, LDL is not
the only or even the most important biomarker for CHD risk. A suitably integrated view of the mechanism by which
diet influences the detailed CHD pathogenetic pathways is therefore needed in order to better understand CHD risk
factors and help with better holistic CHD prevention and treatment decisions.
Methods: A systematic review of the existing literature was conducted. From this an integrated CHD pathogenetic
pathway system was constructed. CHD biomarkers, which are found on these pathways, are the only measurable
data to link diet with these CHD pathways. They were thus used to simplify the link between diet and the CHD
mechanism. Data were systematically analysed from 294 cohort studies of CHD biomarkers constituting 1 187 350
patients.
Results and discussion: The resulting integrated analysis provides insight into the higher-order interactions
underlying CHD and high-glycemic load (HGL) diets. A novel “connection graph” illustrates the measurable
relationship between HGL diets and the relative risks attributed to the important CHD serological biomarkers.
The “connection graph” vividly shows that HGL diets not only influence the lipid and metabolic biomarkers,
but also the inflammation, coagulation and vascular function biomarkers in an important way.
Conclusion: A focus primarily on the low density lipoprotein cholesterol biomarker for CHD risk has led to
the traditional guidelines of CHD dietary recommendations. This has however inadvertently led to HGL diets.
The influence of HGL diets on the other CHD biomarkers is not always fully appreciated. Thus, new diets or
other interventions which address the full integrated CHD impact, as shown in this paper, are required
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10394/18244https://nutritionandmetabolism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12986-015-0001-x
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12986-015-0001-x
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