Acute Heart Failure Survival Trends With Mediterranean Diet

HealthDay News— For patients with acute heart failure, adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) does not influence long-term mortality, according to a study published in JACC: Heart Failure.

Òscar Miró, PhD, from the University of Barcelona in Spain, and colleagues conducted a prospective study involving patients with acute heart failure in 7 Spanish emergency departments. Data were included for 991 patients, of whom 52.9% were adherent to the MedDiet.

The researchers observed no significant differences in survival between adherent and nonadherent patients after a mean follow-up of 2.1 ± 1.3 years (hazard ratio of adherents [HR_adh], 0.86; 95% CI, 0.73 to 1.02).

For the whole cohort, the one-year cumulative emergency department revisit was 24.5% (HR_adh, 1.10; 95% CI, 0.84 to 1.42), hospitalization 43.7% (HR_adh, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.61 to 0.90), death 22.7% (HR_adh, 1.05; 95% CI, 0.8 to 1.38), and combined end point 66.8% (HR_adh, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.76 to 1.04). Similar results were seen after adjustment for confounding variables, with no statistically significant differences in mortality (HR_adh, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.80 to 1.13); lower one-year hospitalization for adherents persisted (HR_adh, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.62 to 0.93).

“Adherence to the MedDiet did not influence long-term mortality after an episode of acute heart failure, but it was associated with decreased rates of rehospitalization during the next year,” the authors write.

The research group received funding from Orion Pharma and Novartis.

Reference

Miro O, Estruch R, Martin-Sanchez FJ, et al. Adherence to Mediterranean diet and all-cause mortality after an episode of acute heart failure: results of the MEDIT-AHF study. JACC Heart Fail. 2017 Nov 27. pii: S2213-1779(17)30683-2.