Diet to lower blood pressure may reduce heart failure risk in women

"A new study shows that a particular diet could help women reduce their risk of heart failure. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet is known to be an effective way to reduce high blood pressure. Researchers wanted to see if it would also be effective in reducing the risk of heart failure. Researchers looked at the diets of 36,000 women who were between 48 and 83 years of age and who didn’t have heart failure or diabetes or experienced previous heart attack. Researchers sent food questionnaires to the participants that were created to be matched against the DASH recommendations. Using this, researchers scored participants on how closely their diets happened to resemble the DASH recommendations. The researchers followed up with the participants after seven years and found that 443 of the women had developed heart failure. The women were separated into four categories based on how closely their own diets matched the DASH diet. The women in the top quarter with the highest DASH scores had a 37% lower rate of heart failure compared to those in the lowest quarter of DASH scores. This was after controlling for other risk factors including age, physical activity levels and smoking habits. Those who were in the top 10% of the highest DASH scores fared even better, having half the rate of heart failure as those in the bottom quarter. The researchers say that the DASH diet could be an effective lifestyle intervention for women who not only want to reduce their high blood pressure, but also their risk of heart failure"