DASH diet adherence helps improve insulin resistance in heart failure patients

Good adherence to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet among adult heart failure (HF) patients can lower insulin resistance, a study has found.

The study used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2016 cycles. A total of 348 HF patients aged ≥20 years with no history of diabetes were included in the analysis.

DASH diet adherence index was categorized into quartiles, with quartile 1 indicating the lowest and quartile 4 indicating the highest adherence. The highest level of insulin resistance was defined by the upper tertile of the Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR).

Researchers applied logistic regression to examine the associations between the level of insulin resistance and DASH diet adherence and its linear trends. Trend analyses showed that patients in upper vs lower DASH diet adherence index quartiles tended to be older, female, non-Hispanic White, of normal weight, and have lower levels of fasting insulin.

Median values of HOMA-IR from lowest to highest DASH diet adherence index quartiles were 3.1 (interquartile range [IQR], 1.8–5.5), 2.9 (IQR, 1.7–5.6), 2.1 (IQR, 1.1–3.7), and 2.1 (IQR, 1.3–3.5). In multivariable logistic regression models, patients with the highest compared to the lowest DASH adherence had 77.1-percent lower odds of having the highest level of insulin resistance (odds ratio, 0.229, 95 percent confidence interval, 0.073–0.716; p=0.017 for linear trend).

The findings highlight the potential role of heart-healthy dietary patterns in the prevention of type 2 diabetes among HF patients.