Older Women Reduce Risk of Heart Failure by Eating
Blood Pressure-Lowering DASH Diet
May work because it effectively reduces blood
pressure and bad cholesterol
May 11, 2009 – The DASH diet, long promoted as
having preventive and treatment qualities to confront high blood
pressure, may also lower the risk of heart failure for women.
Hypertension is by far the number one reason older women seek medical
help and many have probably been encouraged by their doctors to use this
diet plan.
Reducing calories
worked in one, DASH diet with exercise in the second
April 5, 2006 – Two studies released this week
indicates that diets – one reducing calories and the other using the
DASH diet – can make a significant contribution to longer life.
"The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH)
diet may contribute to prevention of heart failure in some cases because
it effectively reduced blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein [LDL,
or "bad"] cholesterol levels in clinical trials," the authors write in
the May 11 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the
JAMA/Archives journals.
"This diet features high intake of fruits,
vegetables, low-fat dairy products and whole grains, resulting in high
potassium, magnesium, calcium and fiber consumption, moderately high
protein consumption and low total and saturated fat consumption."
Dietary patterns have been associated with risk
factors for heart failure, but little has been known about whether food
choices can prevent or delay the condition, according to background
information in the article.
Emily B. Levitan, Sc.D., of Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center, Boston, and colleagues analyzed data from 36,019 women
ages 48 to 83 without heart failure who were participating in the
Swedish Mammography Cohort.
Hypertension number one treatment for women from
age 45 up; Hyperlipidemia a distant second
May 7, 2009 - The most common medical treatment for
women – especially senior citizens – is for hypertension (high blood
pressure). There were approximately 25 million women treated in the U.S.
for this condition in 2006, with almost 12 million – about half - of
these being age 65 or older.
Read more...
Participants completed a food frequency
questionnaire at the beginning of the study, between 1997 and 1998, that
was used to calculate a score indicating how closely their diets matched
DASH guidelines.
The women were followed up from 1998 through 2004 using
Swedish databases of hospitalizations and deaths.
During the seven-year follow-up, 443 women
developed heart failure, including 415 who were hospitalized and 28 who
died of the condition.
Compared with the one-fourth of women with the
lowest DASH diet scores, the one-fourth of women with the highest DASH
diet scores had a 37 percent lower rate of heart failure after factors
such as age, physical activity and smoking were considered.
Women whose scores placed them in the top 10
percent had half the rate of heart failure compared with the one-fourth
who had the lowest scores.
Previous studies have shown that the DASH diet
lowers systolic (top number) blood pressure by about 5.5 millimeters of
mercury, a decrease that might be expected to reduce the rate of heart
failure by about 12 percent, the authors note.
Other mechanisms by which this eating pattern may
influence heart failure risk include the reduction of LDL cholesterol,
estrogen-like effects of some of the nutrients in the diet and a
decrease in oxygen-related cell damage.
"In conclusion, greater consistency with the DASH
diet as measured using food-frequency questionnaires was associated with
lower rates of heart failure in middle-aged and elderly women living in
Sweden," the authors write.
Editor's Note: Maintenance of the cohort was
provided by grants from the Swedish Research Council/Committee for
Infrastructure. This study was supported by a grant from the Swedish
Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher
Education and by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
May 11, 2009 – The DASH diet, long promoted as
having preventive and treatment qualities to confront high blood
pressure, may also lower the risk of heart failure for women.
Hypertension is by far the number one reason older women seek medical
help and many have probably been encouraged by their doctors to use this
diet plan.