A team of Danish, Swedish and Finnish researchers has just shown that the Norwegian diet can reduce cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
More and more studies are coming to extol the merits of this or that diet on health. Recently, a team of Danish, Swedish and Finnish researchers came to highlight the beneficial effects of the Nordic diet. As a reminder, the latter consists mainly of berries, vegetables, fish, whole grains, dairy products or rapeseed oil. According to a recent study, they state that the diet has many benefits, such as reducing cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
The health benefits of the Norwegian diet
Through a new study, published in the journal Clinical Nutrition, researchers have revealed that the Norwegian diet has beneficial effects on health. Unlike previous work highlighting benefits following weight loss, this research predicts beneficial effects whether or not people lose weight. In detail, the scientists specified that the Nordic diet made it possible to lower the level of glucose in the blood, but also cholesterol, and this, without requiring a loss of weight beforehand.
Lars Ove Dragsted, researcher at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) and co-author of the study, pointed out in a press release “It’s surprising, because most people think that the benefits on blood sugar and cholesterol are only due to weight loss. Here we have found that this is not the case. Other mechanisms also come into play.
In order to reach this conclusion, the team of researchers came to analyze blood and urine samples from 200 people aged over 50 with a high BMI and an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. During a period of six months, two groups were thus studied: one maintaining its traditional eating habits and the other adopting the Norwegian diet.
In the group that followed the Nordic diet, the researchers pointed out lower cholesterol levels ; lower levels of saturated and unsaturated fats in the blood; and better glucose regulation, compared to the control group.
As a clarification, Lars Ove Dragsted explained: “We kept the weight of the group on the Nordic diet stable, meaning we asked them to eat more if they were losing weight. Even without weight loss, we could see an improvement in their health.” The researchers point out that this is partly due to the presence of certain “good” fats in the Nordic diet.