Low-fiber diets are linked to dangerous arterial plaque that can block blood flow and trigger heart attacks or strokes.
United States: Munching lightly on veggies, grains, beans, and other high-fiber foods helps not only your heart but also your intestinal well-being, a new study says.
Individuals who have low-fiber intake are more likely to experience a condition of narrowed arteries due to plaque deposits, as reported recently in Cardiovascular Research.
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According to researchers, CT scans also showed that the diets of people contribute to the risks of unstable, high-risk arterial plaques that put people at risk of heart attack and stroke.
According to the senior researcher Isabel Gonçalves, who is a professor of cardiology at Lund University in Sweden. “When we matched people’s coronary artery images with their dietary patterns, we could not only see that there is an association between dietary pattern and the presence of plaque in the coronary arteries but also that the composition of the plaques, how dangerous they can be, is related to diet,” US News reported.
Low-fibre diet with high red meat content is associated with high-risk coronary #plaque features
— European Society of Cardiology Journals (@ESC_Journals) June 27, 2025
Metabolic & hemodynamic factors underscore the importance of diet in #atherosclerosishttps://t.co/FthEUynuvV@CVR_TomaszGuzik @glenpyle @DrMikeDrozd #CardiovascularResearch pic.twitter.com/lKRzmR9keX
The American Heart Association states that cholesterol and fats also help in developing these plaques through a process known as atherosclerosis.
These plaques make the arteries constrict, leading to a constrained flow of blood. The unstable plaques may also rupture, which may obstruct the artery and lead to a heart attack or a stroke.
To conduct the study, the authors looked at the data of over 24,000 individuals aged between 50 and 64 years who participated in the Swedish heart health study.
They have been recruited between 2013 and 2018, all of which have no heart problems.
When comparing measurements of CT scans with diet questionnaires, it was discovered that 44 percent of those who have the worst diet had developed some level of arterial plaques compared to 36 percent among the healthiest dieters.
Researchers discovered that health-threatening plaque issues that included arteries narrowed 50 percent or more by plaques, or the growth of unstable plaques having a higher likelihood of rupture was 60 percent greater among the participants in the worst diets, as US News reported.
“Our results suggest that an unhealthy, low-fiber diet may contribute to changes in the body and metabolism, which in turn may lead to unfavorable plaque characteristics,” as Goncalves stated.