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Adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with reduced risk of heart failure in men
Author(s) -
Tektonidis Thanasis G.,
Åkesson Agneta,
Gigante Bruna,
Wolk Alicja,
Larsson Susanna C.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
european journal of heart failure
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.149
H-Index - 133
eISSN - 1879-0844
pISSN - 1388-9842
DOI - 10.1002/ejhf.481
Subject(s) - medicine , mediterranean diet , relative risk , proportional hazards model , heart failure , confounding , quartile , confidence interval , lower risk , population , cohort study , cohort , hazard ratio , incidence (geometry) , prospective cohort study , environmental health , physics , optics
Aims We examined the hypothesis that high adherence to a Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of developing heart failure ( HF ) as well as the risk of death from HF . Methods and results The study population comprised 37 308 men from the Cohort of Swedish Men who were free from cardiovascular disease at baseline. The modified Mediterranean diet ( mMED ) score was created from a self‐administered food frequency questionnaire, based on consumption of presumed beneficial/detrimental foods, on a 0–8 scale. Incident HF events were ascertained by linkage to the Swedish National Patient and the Cause of Death Registers. Relative risks ( RR ) with 95% confidence intervals ( CI ), adjusted for potential confounders, were estimated by Cox proportional hazards regression models. We identified 146 deaths from HF and 1269 incident HF events over a median follow‐up of 10.9 years (1998–2008). The mMED score was inversely associated with risk of HF (multivariable RR for the highest vs. lowest quartile 0.69, 95% CI 0.57, 0.83); the corresponding RR of HF mortality was 0.55 (95% CI 0.31, 0.98). The multivariable RR for every two‐point increment in the mMED score was 0.85 (95% CI 0.78, 0.91) for incidence of HF and 0.78 (95% CI 0.62, 0.98) for mortality from HF , respectively. Conclusions High adherence to a Mediterranean diet was associated with a lower risk of HF and mortality from HF in men. Further studies are needed to replicate these findings in other populations.