[Food intake of Danes and cardiac risk factors]

We served a low-fat (28% of energy) high-fibre (3.3 g/MJ) diet according to Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (REC diet), and a high-fat diet (39% of energy) corresponding to the average Danish diet (DANE diet) to 21 healthy middle-aged individuals in a two times two weeks cross-over study. The REC diet resulted in lower serum concentrations of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (medians: 2.77 vs 3.04 mmol/l, p < 0.001), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (1.08 vs 1.24 mmol/l, p < 0.001), and higher fasting triglycerides (1.11 vs 0.86 mmol/l, p = 0.04) than the DANE diet. Furthermore, the REC diet lowered plasma factor VII coagulant activity (FVIIc) (88 vs 96%, p = 0.002) and raised plasma fibrinolytic activity. Our observations indicate that a low-fat high-fibre diet may not only reduce the atherogenic, but also the thrombogenic tendency of an individual compared with a diet corresponding to the average Danish diet.