The Role of Nutrition in Cardiometabolic Health: Experimental, Clinical, and Community-Based Evidence

Cardiometabolic disease is a major health and economic burden worldwide, and its prevalence is expected to rise. Excess body fat, dyslipidemia, poor glucose metabolism, and elevated blood pressure are just a few of the many cardiometabolic risk factors that can be influenced by diet. As the rates of these factors continue to rise, a healthy lifestyle that includes proper nutrition should be a public health goal. In this book, renowned researchers provide cutting-edge scientific evaluations of the impacts of diet and lifestyle on cardiometabolic health. This book contains 11 chapters which cover a wide range of topics, such as biological mechanisms governing food intake, lifestyle and surgical approaches to weight loss, nutritional aspects for optimal cardiometabolic health, the association between macronutrients, micronutrients, whole foods, and dietary patterns with obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular risk factors. The effects of vitamin D and low-carbohydrate diets on microvascular function in morbidly obese people are addressed in Chapters 1 and 2, respectively, whereas the influence of fat-based versus sugar-based Western diets on cardiac remodeling is discussed in Chapter 3. The ANCHORS A-WHEY and African-PREDICT clinical trials, which provide data on the cardiovascular effects of supplements (whey protein) and medicinal drugs (marinobufagenin), are discussed in Chapters 4 and 5, respectively. Chapters 6 and 7 provide a comprehensive summary of the dietary characteristics that contribute to an increased cardiovascular risk and micronutrient deficiencies following various modalities of bariatric surgery. Chapters 8 and 9 cover homocysteine, a byproduct of one-carbon metabolism, and its epigenetic and vascular consequences in obese people. Finally, Chapters 10 and 11 present new findings and a review of the literature on the mechanisms by which the bile acid receptor, TGR5, maintains glucose homeostasis.