Its truly never too late to switch to a heart-healthy diet: A new study reports that the same healthy dietary changes that can help you prevent a heart attack in the first place can also increase longevity after a heart attack. Patients who improved their diets the most after surviving a heart attack were 40% less likely to die from cardiovascular causes during the studys followup period, and 29% less likely to die of any cause.
Experts had long assumed that eating better would improve survival after a heart attack, much as a healthy diet reduces cardiovascular risk overall, but lacked hard data showing such a benefit.
This is an important proof of concept, says Alice H. Lichtenstein, DSc, director of Tufts HNRCA Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory. We now have data to indicate that after suffering a heart attack, adhering to a heart-healthy diet has benefits.
IMPROVING YOUR SCORE: The new study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, followed 2,258 women from the Nurses Health Study and 1,840 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who had survived heart attacks. Participants had completed dietary questionnaires both before and after their heart attacks.
Diets were scored on a 110-point scale using the Alternative Healthy Index 2010, a model that researchers said has much in common with the so-called Mediterranean Diet but better measures US eating habits. (See box.) Most participants improved their scores after suffering a heart attack, with an average 5.5 points better for men and 2.1 for women. The most common changes were eating more whole grains and reducing trans fats and red and processed meats. Sipping sugary drinks seemed the hardest habit to kick, with soft-drink scores improving the least.
Overall, after adjustment for other risk factors, post-heart attack patients who ate the healthiest diets were 24% less likely to die of all causes than those with the poorest dietary scores.
GENDER DIFFERENCE: One wrinkle in the findings was that the healthy-eating survival benefit was almost entirely accounted for by the women in the study. Researchers Shanshan Li, MD, ScD, of the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues speculated that this surprising gender difference could have been due to greater fatality among the women, fewer events in the extreme diet categories for men, or differing post-heart attack factors the study couldnt account for.
In any case, its better not to wait until after youve suffered a heart attack to improve your diet. Says Tufts Lichtenstein, There are many reasons for adhering to a heart-healthy dietary pattern. This study provides one more additional reason.