Adhereing to plant-based diet reduces heart failure risk: JACC

USA: A plant-based diet consists of foods derived from plants including fruits, legumes, vegetables, grains, and nuts. It is known to have a plethora of health benefits, adding one more to the list, a recent study has demonstrated its role in the prevention of heart failure (HF).

The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology has found that adherence to a plant-based dietary pattern is associated with a 41% lower risk of heart failure in adults without known heart disease. It also found that Southern diets consisting of sweetened drinks, fried and processed foods are associated with greater risk.

Kyla M. Lara, a cardiology fellow at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues conducted the study to determine associations of 5 dietary patterns with incident HF hospitalizations among U.S. adults. The five major dietary patterns were identified within the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study population.

The researchers examined the association between those patterns and incident heart failure hospitalizations in REGARDS participants without known heart disease or heart failure at baseline. Within the REGARDS study, researchers narrowed their sample size to 16,608 black and white adults aged 45 years old and older. Participants were sent a 150-question survey based on 107 food items, which were categorized into the five pre-determined diets:

• "Convenience" (heavily meat dishes, pasta, Mexican dishes, pizza, and fast food)


• "Plant-based" (vegetables, fruit, beans, and fish)


• "Sweets/fats" (heavy on desserts, bread, sweet breakfast foods, chocolate, and other sugar)


• "Southern" (heavy on fried food, processed meats, eggs, added fats, and sugar-sweetened beverages)


• "Alcohol/salads" (heavy on wine, liquor, beer, leafy greens, and salad dressing)

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Key findings of the study include:

• After 8.7 years of follow up on average, there were 363 new heart failure hospitalizations.


• Compared with the lowest quartile, the highest quartile of adherence to the plant-based dietary pattern was associated with a 41% lower risk of HF in multivariable-adjusted models.


• Highest adherence to the Southern dietary pattern was associated with a 72% higher risk of HF after adjusting for age, sex, and race and for other potential confounders (education, income, region of residence, total energy intake, smoking, physical activity, and sodium intake).


• The association was attenuated and no longer statistically significant after further adjusting for body mass index in kg/m², waist circumference, hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, atrial fibrillation, and chronic kidney disease.


• No statistically significant associations were observed with incident HF with reduced or preserved ejection fraction hospitalizations and the dietary patterns.


• No associations were observed with the other 3 dietary patterns.

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"The need for population-based preventive strategies for heart failure is critical," said Lara. "These findings support a population-based dietary strategy for lowering the risk of incident heart failure."

"Adherence to a plant-based dietary pattern was inversely associated with incident HF risk, whereas the Southern dietary pattern was positively associated with incident HF risk," concluded the authors.

For detailed study log on to 10.1016/j.jacc.2019.01.067