From the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology:
Decaffeinated, ground, and instant coffee, particularly at 2–3 cups/day, were associated with significant reductions in incident cardiovascular disease and mortality.
“Cardiovascular disease” includes coronary artery disease (e.g., heart attacks), heart failure, and ischemic strokes.
The study was done by Australian researchers using a UK database.
Steve Parker, M.D.
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Posted in Heart Disease, stroke
A review article in American Journal of Medicine looks at various diets that may have influence on development or progression of cardiovascular disease. All I have is the abstract, which mentions the Paleolithic diet. I don’t have access to the full article. If you do, please leave a comment below regarding the authors’ thoughts on the paleo diet. Among the 25 authors, I recognized three names; two of which are committed vegetarians or vegans (Ornish and Barnard). I suspect the article will be anti-meat.
In cardiology clinic visits, the discussion of optimal dietary patterns for prevention and management of cardiovascular disease is usually very limited. Herein, we explore the benefits and risks of various dietary patterns, including intermittent fasting, low carbohydrate, Paleolithic, whole food plant-based diet, and Mediterranean dietary patterns within the context of cardiovascular disease to empower clinicians with the evidence and information they need to maximally benefit their patients.
Reference: Controversial Dietary Patterns: A High Yield Primer for Clinicians.
Steve Parker, M.D.
Posted in Heart Disease, stroke
Purpose: To assess the association between a score appraising adherence to the PaleoDiet and the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in a Mediterranean cohort.
Methods: We included 18,210 participants from the Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra (SUN) cohort study. The PaleoDiet score comprised six food groups promoted within this diet (fruit, nuts, vegetables, eggs, meat and fish) and five food groups whose consumption is discouraged (cereals and grains, dairy products, legumes, culinary ingredients, and processed/ultra-processed foods). CVD was defined as acute myocardial infarction with or without ST elevation, non-fatal stroke and cardiovascular death. Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for potential confounders were fitted to assess the association between the PaleoDiet score and CVD risk, and the PaleoDiet and MedDiet indices to explore differences between both diets.
Results: During 12.2 years of follow-up, 165 incident CVD cases were confirmed. A significant inverse association was found between the PaleoDiet score and CVD (HR Q5 vs. Q1: 0.45, 95% CI 0.27-0.76, P for trend = 0.007). A weaker association that became non-significant was observed when the item for low consumption of ultra-processed foods was removed from the score. Joint analysis of PaleoDiet and MedDiet Trichopoulou scores suggested that the inverse association between PaleoDiet and CVD was mainly present when adherence to the MedDiet was also high (HR for high adherence vs low adherence to both diet scores: 0.22, 95% CI 0.08-0.64).
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the PaleoDiet may have cardiovascular benefits in participants from a Mediterranean country. Avoidance of ultra-processed foods seems to play a key role in this inverse association.
Link to European Journal of Nutrition article.
I was glad to see some new names among the researchers.
Steve Parker, M.D.
PS: If you’ve abandoned your New Years’ diet resolution, consider the Paleobetic Diet!
Posted in Heart Disease, stroke
Compared to no coffee-drinking, drinking four cups a day reduced overall death rate by 20%, reduced cardiovascular deaths by 40%, and reduced death rate form coronary artery disease by 30%. The study at hand was a meta-analysis involving over 80,000 folks with type 2 diabetes living in multiple studies and followed clinically for 5-20 years. “Cardiovascular deaths” are usually heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrest, or heart failure.
I vaguely recall a study several decades ago linking coffee to pancreas cancer, one of the deadliest cancers. The research was subsequently discredited.
Is coffee as a drink considered “paleo”? It seems to have originated in Africa, which is considered the cradle of humanity. I’m not sure anybody knows when we started drinking it; maybe 14 centuries ago. It’s possible we chewed it as a stimulant even before that. Extant humans who’ve been drinking four cups a day for many years are unlikely to drop the habit even if it isn’t paleo.
From Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases:
To evaluate the long-term consequences of coffee drinking in patients with type 2 diabetes.
PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Sciences were searched to November 2020 for prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of coffee drinking with risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes. Two reviewers extracted data and rated the certainty of evidence using GRADE approach. Random-effects models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs. Dose–response associations were modeled by a one-stage mixed-effects meta-analysis. Ten prospective cohort studies with 82,270 cases were included. Compared to those with no coffee consumption, the HRs for consumption of 4 cups/d were 0.79 (95%CI: 0.72, 0.87; n = 10 studies) for all-cause mortality, 0.60 (95%CI: 0.46, 0.79; n = 4) for CVD mortality, 0.68 (95%CI: 0.51, 0.91; n = 3) for coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality, 0.72 (95%CI: 0.54, 0.98; n = 2) for CHD, and 0.77 (95%CI: 0.61, 0.98; n = 2) for total CVD events. There was no significant association for cancer mortality and stroke. There was an inverse monotonic association between coffee drinking and all-cause and CVD mortality, and inverse linear association for CHD and total CVD events. The certainty of evidence was graded moderate for all-cause mortality, and low or very low for other outcomes.
Drinking coffee may be inversely associated with the risk of mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes. However, more research is needed considering type of coffee, sugar and cream added to coffee, and history of CVD to present more confident results.
Steve Parker, M.D.
Posted in Heart Disease, Longevity, stroke
First, remember that blood pressure is reported as two numbers: systolic and diastolic. E.g., 135/92. The first number is the systolic number. A systolic pressure goal of under 120 mmHg may be better than the traditional goal of under 140, at least if you’re “at increased risk for cardiovascular disease.” The study at hand excluded folks with diabetes or prior stroke.
We randomly assigned 9,361 participants who were at increased risk for cardiovascular disease but did not have diabetes or previous stroke to adhere to an intensive treatment target (systolic blood pressure, <120 mm Hg) or a standard treatment target (systolic blood pressure, <140 mm Hg). The primary outcome was a composite of myocardial infarction, other acute coronary syndromes, stroke, acute decompensated heart failure, or death from cardiovascular causes. Additional primary outcome events occurring through the end of the intervention period (August 20, 2015) were adjudicated after data lock for the primary analysis. We also analyzed post-trial observational follow-up data through July 29, 2016.
RESULTS
At a median of 3.33 years of follow-up, the rate of the primary outcome and all-cause mortality during the trial were significantly lower in the intensive-treatment group than in the standard-treatment group (rate of the primary outcome, 1.77% per year vs. 2.40% per year; hazard ratio, 0.73; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.63 to 0.86; all-cause mortality, 1.06% per year vs. 1.41% per year; hazard ratio, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.61 to 0.92). Serious adverse events of hypotension, electrolyte abnormalities, acute kidney injury or failure, and syncope were significantly more frequent in the intensive-treatment group. When trial and post-trial follow-up data were combined (3.88 years in total), similar patterns were found for treatment benefit and adverse events; however, rates of heart failure no longer differed between the groups.
Click for article abstract at NEJM.
Steve Parker, M.D.
Posted in Heart Disease, Longevity, stroke
High blood pressure is linked to heart attacksVery
This may be the most important biomedical research of 2019. Very recently I have noticed hypertension patients taking their medications at bedtime. Now I know why.
From Medscape:
Taking antihypertensive medication at bedtime led to an almost halving of cardiovascular events in a new study.
The Hygia Chronotherapy Trial is the largest ever study to investigate the effect of the time of day when people take their antihypertensive medication on the risk of cardiovascular events.
The trial randomly assigned 19,084 patients to take their medication on waking or at bedtime and followed them for an average of 6 years.Results showed that patients who took their pills at bedtime had a 45% reduction in overall cardiovascular events. This included a 56% reduction in cardiovascular death, a 34% reduction in myocardial infarction (MI), a 40% reduction in coronary revascularization [bypass surgery and angioplasty/stenting], a 42% reduction in heart failure, and a 49% reduction in stroke, all of which were statistically significant.
***
“We showed that if blood pressure is elevated during sleep then patients have increased cardiovascular risk regardless of daytime pressure, and if blood pressure during sleep is normal then cardiovascular risk is low even if the [doctor’s] office pressure is elevated,” Hermida said.
***
Results showed that during the 6.3-year median patient follow-up, 1752 participants experienced the primary cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcome (a composite of CVD death, MI, coronary revascularization, heart failure, or stroke).
Drug classes as physicians’ disposal were ARBs (angiotensin receptor blockers, calcium channel blockers, ACE inhibitors, and diuretics. Preventative effects were most pronounced for ARBs and ACE inhibitors.
Don’t change your BP medication dosing until you check with your personal physician.
Source: Bedtime Dosing of Hypertension Meds Reduces CV Events
Did you know most heart attacks occur in the morning, and those tend to be the most serious?
Steve Parker, M.D.
Click pic to purchase book at Amazon.com. E-book versions available at Smashwords.com.
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Posted in Heart Disease, Longevity, stroke
Not your average cave-woman
Regarding the mention of paleo diet below, I rather doubt the study at hand hand significant numbers of paleo diet followers. From the Journal of the American Heart Association:
ABSTRACT
Background Dietary patterns are associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in the general population, but diet-CVD association in populations with diabetes mellitus is limited. Our objective was to examine the association between diet quality and CVD risk in a population with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Methods and Results
We analyzed prospective data from 5809 women with prevalent type 2 diabetes mellitus at baseline from the Women’s Health Initiative. Diet quality was defined using alternate Mediterranean, Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension, Paleolithic, and American Diabetes Association dietary pattern scores calculated from a validated food frequency questionnaire. Multivariable Cox’s proportional hazard regression was used to analyze the risk of incident CVD. During mean 12.4 years of follow-up, 1454 (25%) incident CVD cases were documented. Women with higher alternate Mediterranean, Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension, and American Diabetes Association dietary pattern scores had a lower risk of CVD compared with women with lower scores (Q5 v Q1) (hazard ratio [HR]aMed 0.77, 95% CI 0.65-0.93; HRDASH 0.69, 95% CI 0.58-0.83; HRADA 0.71, 95% CI 0.59-0.86). No association was observed between the Paleolithic score and CVD risk.
Conclusions
Dietary patterns that emphasize higher intake of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts/seeds, legumes, a high unsaturated:saturated fat ratio, and lower intake of red and processed meats, added sugars, and sodium are associated with lower CVD risk in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Steve Parker, M.D.
Click pic to purchase book at Amazon.com. E-book versions available at Smashwords.com.
Posted in Heart Disease, stroke
…at least if you’re Japanese. I rarely eat ramen, but understand it’s fairly popular among young adults in the U.S, particularly among college students, because it’s cheap, quick, and tasty.
Click for details of the study in Nutrition Journal. Some background from the article:
Ramen is one of the most popular foods in Japan, despite being of Chinese origin [11]. Since its original introduction in Japan, ramen has been adapted and now consists of wheat noodles served in broth topped with sliced pork, seaweed, or menma (a Japanese condiment made from lacto-fermented bamboo shoots; Additional file 1). Being tasty and inexpensive, ramen became a popular food that was available from street food stands in Japan after World War ΙΙ. Although the number of ramen stands has decreased markedly, ramen remains highly popular in Japan. High dietary sodium content was recently reported to be a risk factor for stroke [12]; ramen has a high sodium content. However, the relationship between stroke and ramen consumption remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the association between the number of ramen restaurants in each Japanese prefecture and stroke mortality in that prefecture.
Steve Parker, M.D.
Click pic to purchase book at Amazon.com. E-book versions available at Smashwords.com.
Click pic to purchase book at Amazon.com. E-book versions also available at Smashwords.com.
Paleo Diabetic 