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DASH diet could lower HF incidence, data reveal

Tuesday, June 16 2009 | Comments

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What's This? Women who follow the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet experience lower rates of heart failure (HF), a study of the Swedish Mammography Cohort shows.

The American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have advised specific food and nutrient intake to prevent risk factors for HF such as hypertension. They recommend diets consistent with that outlined in DASH, which involves high consumption of fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, and whole grains; moderately high protein consumption; and low total and saturated fat intake.

However, not much is known about the effect of diet on HF, so researchers used data from Swedish registries to ascertain a potential link. The study was conducted among 36,019 women aged 48 to 83 years without a history of HF, myocardial infarction, or diabetes. They filled out questionnaires about their usual consumption of 96 foods and beverages in the prior year and were followed-up from 1998 through 2004 for hospitalizations or deaths associated with a primary diagnosis of HF.

The women's consistency with the DASH diet was based on a component score (as proposed by Fung et al.) and 3 absolute food and nutrient intake scores (as recommended by Folsom et al. and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute). The participants were then divided into quartiles according to their ranking for each score. The study authors found that subjects in the top quartile (higher scores) of the DASH component score followed the DASH diet more closely than those in the bottom quartile (lower scores).

Throughout the 7 years of follow-up, 443 women experienced HF, resulting in a rate of 18.1 per 10,000 women per year.

After adjustments, women in the top quartile for the DASH component score had a 37% lower incidence of HF relative to women in the bottom quartile (rate ratio, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.48-0.81; P<.001). More specifically, women who had the top 10% of component scores showed a 51% reduced incidence of HF than did women in the lowest quartile. This association was linear across the range of scores (P for trend <.001).

A similar pattern was evident for the other 3 food and nutrient recommendation scores, but these results did not reach statistical significance.

"In conclusion, greater consistency with the DASH diet as measured using food-frequency questionnaires was associated with lower rates of HF in middle-aged and elderly women living in Sweden," the researchers wrote. (Levitan EB, et al. Arch Intern Med 2009;169:851-857.)

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