Heart failure
Relation of Consistency With the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Diet and Incidence of Heart Failure in Men Aged 45 to 79 Years

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2009.06.061Get rights and content

The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet reduces blood pressure, and consistency with the DASH diet has been associated with lower rates of heart failure (HF) in women. We examined the association between consistency with the DASH diet and rates of HF hospitalization or mortality in 38,987 participants in the Cohort of Swedish Men aged 45 to 79 years. The diet was measured using food-frequency questionnaires, and scores were created to assess the consistency with DASH by ranking the intake of the DASH diet components. Cox models were used to calculate the rate ratios of HF (807 incident cases) determined through the Swedish in-patient and cause-of-death registers from January 1, 1998 to December 31, 2006. In multivariate-adjusted analyses, men in the greatest quartile of the DASH component score had a 22% lower rate of HF events than those in the lowest quartile (95% confidence interval 5% to 35%, p for trend = 0.006). In conclusion, greater consistency with the DASH diet was associated with lower rates HF events in men aged 45 to 79 years.

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Methods

The present study included 38,987 participants in the Cohort of Swedish Men. The cohort recruitment process, characteristics, and study methods have been previously published.7 Men aged 45 to 79 years in Västmanland and Örebro counties in central Sweden were sent self-administered questionnaires on demographics, weight, height, and intake of foods and beverages in late 1997 and early 1998, and 48,850 responded. Participants were excluded (n = 2,201) because of missing or incorrect national

Results

During 9 years of follow-up of 38,987 men aged 45 to 79 years, 710 were hospitalized for HF and 97 died from HF, a rate of 24 cases per 10,000 person-years. Men in the top quartile of the DASH diet component score consumed, on average, more fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy and fewer sweetened beverages and red or processed meat than men in the bottom quartile of the DASH diet component score (Table 1). Compared to men in the lowest quartile of the DASH component score, men

Discussion

In the present population, consistency with the DASH diet was associated with lower rates of HF events. Men in the top quartile of a score that ranked the DASH diet components had a 22% lower rate of HF events than those in the lowest quartile. We previously reported that women in the top quartile of the DASH diet component score had a 37% lower rate of HF events compared to those in the lowest quartile; scores using other strategies to measure consistency with the DASH diet had similar

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    This study was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council/Committee for Infrastructure and the Committee for Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden, the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT), Stockholm, Sweden, and the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland: Grant F32 HL091683 (to Dr. Levitan).

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