A round 5.7 million people in the United States have heart failure (HF); the mortality within 5 years of diagnosis is ≈50%, 1 and the nation's cost for medical care, medications, and loss of productivity is estimated to $34 billion each year. 2 Thus, preventing development of this disease and identification of factors that affect the risk of HF are of great relevance from a public health point of view.
Editorial see p 549 Clinical Perspective on p 557Among many factors that affect the risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) including HF, diet has an important role. [3][4][5] The results of recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses indicate that high consumption of red and processed meat is related to increased risk of coronary heart disease 6 and stroke, 7 as well as increased CVD mortality. 8 Although only 2 prospective studies 3,9 have examined total red meat consumption in relation to HF incidence, showing inconsistent results, there are no data on the consumption of unprocessed and processed red meat analyzed separately in relation to HF risk.Therefore, we conducted a prospective study to investigate the associations of both unprocessed and processed red meat consumption with HF incidence in the large population-based prospective Cohort of Swedish Men with 12 years of follow-up.
Methods
Study PopulationThe Cohort of Swedish Men was established in the late autumn of 1997, when all men 45 to 79 years old who lived in central Sweden (Västmanland and Örebro Counties) completed a questionnaire on foods intake and other lifestyle factors. Of the 48 850 men who returned a completed questionnaire, we excluded those with missing or incorrect national identification number, blank questionnaires, or previous diagnosis of cancer (other than nonmelanoma skin cancer) (n=2944). Moreover, men with a history of HF or ischemic heart disease at baseline (n=5841) and those with implausible values for total energy intake (>3 SDs from the mean value for log-transformed energy) or missing data on red meat or processed red meat consumption (n=3030) were excluded. Participants were classified as having diabetes mellitus if they had a diagnosis of diabetes mellitus recorded in the Swedish National Inpatient Register or the Swedish National Diabetes Register before baseline or self-reported diabetes mellitus in the questionnaire. Thus, the final cohort included 37 035 participants. The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board at the Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden).
Original Article© 2014 American Heart Association, Inc.Circ Heart Fail is available at http://circheartfailure.ahajournals.org DOI: 10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.113.000921Background-Epidemiological studies of red meat consumption in relation to risk of heart failure (HF) are scarce. We examined the associations of unprocessed and processed red meat consumption with HF incidence and mortality in men. Methods and Results-The population-based prospective Cohort of Swedish Men included 37 035 men, aged 45 to 79 years, with no history of HF, ischemic heart d...