Eating behaviour and coronary heart disease: An exploratory study

Inadequate eating behaviour (skipping meals, eating too fast, out-ofcontrol eating, stress eating, eating too much unhealthy good, restrictive diets, poor food choices and improper food preparation) is certainly a risk factor for arteriosclerosis, making lifestyle changes, particularly those related to diet, important prevention methods. Dietary habits are closely linked to culture, social-demographic factors and economic opportunities, so it is important to investigate diet-related risk behaviours in different populations. Dietary habits of Serbian population are one of the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and their consequences, so we were motivated to examine the relation between the diet and the coronary heart disease in the population of our country. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the correlation between the consumption of certain foodstuffs and the occurrence of coronary heart disease in the population of South-Eastern Serbia. We used the data from the anamnestic study conducted in Niš, among 290 randomly selected patients (average age 59.98 ± 10.03 years), with their first acute coronary syndrome event and 290 selected control cases, matched by sex, age and region (average age 59.43±10.10 years), admitted to the same healthcare institution as cases with no suspicion of coronary disease. Using originally designed questionnaires, we assessed the consumption of different types of foods, as well as the odds ratio for the development of coronary disease based on this consumption. The patients suffering from coronary heart disease consumed statistically significantly less fruits, vegetables and whole grains, while their consumption of meats and salt was higher compared to the control group. Advice for coronary heart disease prevention should certainly include the change in dietary habits which, primarily, pertain to a higher share of plant-based foods and a lower consumption of foods of animal origin.