A healthy Nordic diet can lower ‘bad’ cholesterol levels and may reduce the risk of heart disease, according to a new Scandinavian study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

An international team of researchers led by Dr Bjorn Akesson from Lund University, Sweden, conducted the dietary study in 309 individuals with features of metabolic syndrome in six research centers in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. 200 participants started the intervention after four-week run-in period, and 96 and 70 completed the study in the Healthy Nordic diet and Control diet groups, respectively.

“The primary outcome was insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, and secondary outcomes were blood lipids, blood pressure and inflammatory markers as they are all closely related to insulin resistance and are risk factors for cardiovascular diseases,” the team wrote in the paper.

“In the Healthy Nordic diet, the main emphasis was on food items such as whole-grain products, abundant use of berries, fruit and vegetables, rapeseed oil, three fish meals per week, low-fat dairy products and avoidance of sugar-sweetened products.”

An average Nordic diet served as a Control diet. “The individuals in the Control diet group received low-fiber cereal products, for example, breads with fiber content < 6 g per 100 g, and dairy fat-based spread, for example butter.”

“Compliance was monitored by repeated four-day food diaries and fatty acid composition of serum phospholipids.”

“Body weight remained stable, and no significant changes were observed in insulin sensitivity or blood pressure. Significant changes between the groups were found in non-HDL cholesterol, LDL to HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B to apolipoprotein A1 ratios favoring the Healthy Nordic diet.”

“The subjects who ate a Nordic diet had lower levels of harmful LDL cholesterol and higher levels of ‘good’ HDL cholesterol. The amount of harmful fat particles in the blood also declined,” explained study co-author Dr Lieselotte Cloetens of Lund University, Sweden.

Dr Cloetens said the team now plans to focus on the Nordic diet’s ability to maintain weight loss.

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Bibliographic information: M. Uusitupa et al. Effects of an isocaloric healthy Nordic diet on insulin sensitivity, lipid profile and inflammation markers in metabolic syndrome – a randomized study (SYSDIET). Journal of Internal Medicine, published online March 02, 2013; doi: 10.1111/joim.12044