Risk of heart failure reduced by a plant-based diet

A new American study might entice you to adopt an herbal diet because it reduces the risk of heart failure in healthy adults.

The condition is valued to reach at least 300,000 Australians, a number that should increase both at home and around the world – that's why the research team noted that it was "essential" to develop prevention strategies.

Their study found that adults most adherent to an herbal diet were 41% less likely to be hospitalized for heart disease than less adherents.

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They defined a plant-based diet as being rich in fruits, vegetables, beans and fish (which is good news for carnivores – a plant-based diet refers to a diet that comes mainly from plants and not from animal products).

The research was inspired by data collected from nearly 17,000 participants in the REGARDS study, which initially aimed to explore the racial and geographical factors that influence the risk of stroke.

At the beginning of the study, participants were aged 45 and over and had no history of heart disease. They were asked about their standard dietary intake and divided into five dietary groups based on their responses:

• Herbal diet
• Southern Regime: high content of fried foods, processed meats, eggs, added fat and sweetened beverages
• Convenience diet: heavy in meat dishes, pasta, mexican dishes, pizza and fast food
• Sweet / fatty diet: heavy in desserts, bread, sweet foods, chocolate and other sugars
• Alcoholic diet / salads: heavy in wine, liqueur, beer, leafy vegetables and vinaigrette

Participants were then followed for approximately eight and a half years on average. At that time, 363 of them were hospitalized for heart failure.

The Southern diet has increased the risk of hospitalization for heart failure by nearly 72%, which, according to researchers, could be explained by the fact that such a diet increases the risks of Obesity and excess abdominal fat.

No links were found between the other three eating habits and the risk of heart failure.

The study has some limitations: it only asked participants about their diets at a given point in time, so it can not explain how their diet could have been changed in subsequent years; and remembering people what they ate is notoriously inaccurate.

Nevertheless, the author of the study, Dr. Kyla Lara, a cardiology researcher at the Mayo Clinic, said in a report that the findings support a population-based dietary strategy to reduce the risk of incident heart failure.

In the paper, published in the Journal of the American College of CardiologyLara and her colleagues think that an herbal diet could protect the heart because it contains a lot of antioxidants and other compounds that reduce inflammation.

Quit smoking, manage high blood pressure and maintain a healthy diet and a healthy weight are other strategies to reduce the risk of heart failure.

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