Interesting research on carbs, fats and fruit.

A very large international study, the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study included over 135,000 people from 18 countries in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. As is usually the case with this type of epidemiological study, various aspects of the results were reported and published separately, although the reports were based on the same data. One report on fruit, vegetable and legume intake and their association with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death, was published in The Lancet, as was the second report, linking dietary nutrients, i.e. carbohydrates, proteins and fats, with those outcomes.

The first report on fruit, veggie and legume (FVL) intake found an inverse association between higher intakes of those foods and major CVD endpoints such as heart attacks, major CVD, cardiovascular mortality and total mortality [death].

In the second study, data was analyzed to determine consumption levels of macro-nutrients — fat, protein and carbohydrates — and any association with CVD and mortality. Intakes of these nutrients were divided into 5 groups — quintiles — and the association between the levels of consumption and the risk of CVD and mortality was determined. The second report found:

For carbohydrate consumption, they found a 28 percent significantly increased risk of total mortality for the highest quintile of consumers compared to the lowest

Those in the highest quintile of consumption of total fat, saturated, unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, compared to those in the lowest quintile, had lower risks of total mortality (anywhere from a decrease of 14 to 33 percent). In addition, a higher intake of saturated fat was associated with a 21 percent lower risk of stroke.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/09/01/fruit-and-veggies-beneficial-heart-health-carbs-arent-what-11765