The New Heart Failure Diet: Less Salt Restriction, More Micronutrients

Excerpt

The Western diet has been implicated in a number of chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Patients have eagerly sought medical guidance on the proper diet, and although certain food elements appear to increase the risk of certain diseases, offering up specific dietary advice can be a treacherous endeavor. For one thing, diet is notoriously difficult to study. The effects of diet may take years to develop, few volunteers are willing to engage in randomized trials of diet for long periods of time, and protective factors identified in cohort studies rarely stand up to randomized trials. Not surprisingly, diet advice predicated on observational studies or pathophysiological mechanisms rather than randomized trial evidence may turn out to be ineffective (e.g. avoiding eggs)1 or even harmful (e.g. replacing the saturated fat in butter with margarine rich in trans-fats).2 …