News

DASH diet may reduce heart failure risk for women

May 11, 2009

Women who follow the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet may lower their risk of heart failure in addition to controlling hypertension, a new study suggests.

In previous clinical trials, the DASH diet successfully reduced blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL, or ‘bad’ cholesterol), but longer-term data were needed to assess its effects on cardiovascular health.

For the current study, researchers used diet questionnaires to evaluate the eating habits of 36,000 women, based on elements of the DASH diet. The participants were all women between the ages of 48 and 83 who were part of the Swedish Mammography Cohort. The DASH diet is high in fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy products and whole grains.

The women were divided into four groups (quartiles) based on their diets, with the top group having the highest adherence to the DASH diet. The lowest quartile, which had the least adherence to DASH, was used as the reference group to which the other groups were compared.

During seven years of followup, 443 women developed heart failure, 415 of whom required hospitalization and 28 of whom died.

There was a significant relationship between adherence to the DASH diet and risk of heart failure. The women in the quartile with the closest adherence to DASH were 37 per cent less likely to develop heart failure than those in the reference group. Further analysis indicated that the women in the top 10 per cent of DASH adherence had only half the heart-failure risk of the women in the bottom quartile.

The researchers concluded that a diet consistent with DASH was significantly associated with lower incidence of heart failure in women in this age group.

For more information about the DASH diet and how it relates to Canada’s Food Guide, see the Heart and Stroke Foundation website.

The study was published in the May 11, 2009 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Back to Index for 2009