Recent Study Of Dietary Effect On Heart Failure

[Oldvatr]

The following study report from Finland on the effect of diet on HF has just been published
http://circheartfailure.ahajournals.org/content/11/6/e004531

I have read this, and I also read what our papers are claiming it says. NOPE. WRONG, It is not making any recommendations to follow a vegan diet or give up red meat like you say it does. Boy what a gross distortion you printed. The answer is NOT Whole Food Plant Based based on this study. Take your bias out of my face and report the news as it was published,

The study / trial was to see what long term effect protein in the diet had on risk of HF. It is quite a good report, and it does say that there is a marginal increase in risk for high consumers of animal protein, and a lower risk from vegetable protein. So it seems that excess protein can be to blame, but not specifically due to red meat.

I must point out that Finnish men are among the highest risk individuals in the western hemisphere anyway due to being high meat consumers, high salt intake, heavy smokers, and who devour lots of fermented dairy, which the study identifies as being the main risk to them. They are also generally physically active, so having a high proponderance of deaths due to HF is a connundrum that causes concern

 

[bulkbiker]

I think that this really shows the paucity of good dietary studies..
They looked at food intake over a 4 day period in the late 1980's

"Baseline food consumption was assessed with a food record of 4 days, one of which was a weekend day, by using household measures. A picture book of common foods and dishes was used to help in the estimation of portion sizes. To further improve accuracy, instructions were given, and completed records were checked by a nutritionist together with the participant"

then over 20 years later they start drawing conclusions..

Which turn out to be

" In middle-aged men, higher protein intake was marginally associated with increased risk of HF."

Did they look and see if there had been any changes in diet over those 20 years? It's hard to tell but not stated explicitly so far as I could see.. so completely meaningless.. Zoe Harcombe did a great hatchet job on it too coming up with the conclusion

" “Middle aged Finnish men clearly aren’t doing Atkins: averaging just 25g meat per day.” "

 

[Jaylee]

The landing at Vaasa airport nearly caused a "coronary" for most non Finn, when I went.. (Some sort of side wind.?) But the Moose stew (quite heavy on the protein & hunted by my host.) went down a treat!

 

[Oldvatr]

I think that this really shows the paucity of good dietary studies..
They looked at food intake over a 4 day period in the late 1980's

"Baseline food consumption was assessed with a food record of 4 days, one of which was a weekend day, by using household measures. A picture book of common foods and dishes was used to help in the estimation of portion sizes. To further improve accuracy, instructions were given, and completed records were checked by a nutritionist together with the participant"

then over 20 years later they start drawing conclusions..

Which turn out to be

" In middle-aged men, higher protein intake was marginally associated with increased risk of HF."

Did they look and see if there had been any changes in diet over those 20 years? It's hard to tell but not stated explicitly so far as I could see.. so completely meaningless.. Zoe Harcombe did a great hatchet job on it too coming up with the conclusion

" “Middle aged Finnish men clearly aren’t doing Atkins: averaging just 25g meat per day.” "

Did they have phone apps in the 80's? how else would they assess diet then? I am not sure Atkins was around then either. Certainly not Atkins #2. The main thing was that they tied in public records of those with HF admissions against their database and then looked at how that compared to the national baseline There was a follow up at 10 years not the full 20 you state. But yes, it is an observational study so is not an RCT controlled study. I think any long term trial will suffer the parameter drift you refer to, and that will also be true of any LCHF or ND study from today. Even ND has variablity in it with the added vegetables portion, and so are you saying don't bother trying to find out what diet does beyond 8 weeks? What are you opinions of the Harvard Nurses study, the largest diet study to date?

 

[Oldvatr]

I think that this really shows the paucity of good dietary studies..
They looked at food intake over a 4 day period in the late 1980's

"Baseline food consumption was assessed with a food record of 4 days, one of which was a weekend day, by using household measures. A picture book of common foods and dishes was used to help in the estimation of portion sizes. To further improve accuracy, instructions were given, and completed records were checked by a nutritionist together with the participant"

then over 20 years later they start drawing conclusions..

Which turn out to be

" In middle-aged men, higher protein intake was marginally associated with increased risk of HF."

Did they look and see if there had been any changes in diet over those 20 years? It's hard to tell but not stated explicitly so far as I could see.. so completely meaningless.. Zoe Harcombe did a great hatchet job on it too coming up with the conclusion

" “Middle aged Finnish men clearly aren’t doing Atkins: averaging just 25g meat per day.” "

25g meat a day? WHO shows 81 kg per year in 2016 and a still rising trend. More like 220 g per day.

 

[ickihun]

The following study report from Finland on the effects of diet on HF has just been published
http://circheartfailure.ahajournals.org/content/11/6/e004531

I have read this, and I also read what our papers are claiming it says. NOPE. WRONG, It is not making any recommendations to follow a vegan diet or give up red meat like you say it does. Boy what a gross distortion you printed. The answer is NOT Whole Food Plant Based based on this study. Take your bias out of my face and report the news as it was published,

The study / trial was to see what long term effect protein in the diet had on risk of HF. It is quite a good report, and it does say that there is a marginal increase in risk for high consumers of animal protein, and a lower risk from vegetable protein. So it seems that excess protein can be to blame, but not specifically due to red meat.

I must point out that Finnish men are among the highest risk individuals in the western hemisphere anyway due to being high meat consumers, high salt intake, heavy smokers, and who devour lots of fermented dairy, which the study identifies as being the main risk to them. They are also generally physically active, so having a high proponderance of deaths due to HF is a connundrum that causes concern

High fat diet WITH high carbs seem to be the lethal combination.
Mind u I only lost weight eating low carb and low/medium fat.
I don't think obesity is only cause of heart failure so we may be in the minority.

Ironically bariatric surgery can vary on cardiovascular disease improvement results. Looks like those with by-pass benefit less than with a new sleeve op as nutrients aren't restricted.
So low nutrients do not benefit CVD. In fact good plentiful nutrients help CVD which can cause Heart Failure from attacks.
Bring on plentiful nutrients, not less.
My multivitamins make a huge difference.!!!!

 

[bulkbiker]

25g meat a day? WHO shows 81 kg per year in 2016 and a still rising trend. More like 220 g per day.

In her analysis Dr H points out that of the 70g of daily protein that came from animal sources 29g came from dairy, 25g from meat and 8g from fish. Hence her statement.

 

[Oldvatr]

In her analysis Dr H points out that of the 70g of daily protein that came from animal sources 29g came from dairy, 25g from meat and 8g from fish. Hence her statement.

So my point that Finnish men who apparently eat 220g meat per day are overdoing it compared to the 0.7g/kg body weight we are advised to max out at here in the UK, so that would be a significant factor in the trial being discussed. As it happens, the report states quite clearly that it is not the protein from meat that was shown to be increasing the risk of HF, but it was the abnormally high dietary intake of fermented proteins that was significant, and which is fairly closely linked to Finnish way of life which they use to explain why Finland leads in the HF stakes. But they did also show that high protein intake of any sort seems to increase the risk of HF, and that fish and cheese protein seemed to be almost neutral in this respect.

 

[ickihun]

The following study report from Finland on the effect of diet on HF has just been published
http://circheartfailure.ahajournals.org/content/11/6/e004531

I have read this, and I also read what our papers are claiming it says. NOPE. WRONG, It is not making any recommendations to follow a vegan diet or give up red meat like you say it does. Boy what a gross distortion you printed. The answer is NOT Whole Food Plant Based based on this study. Take your bias out of my face and report the news as it was published,

The study / trial was to see what long term effect protein in the diet had on risk of HF. It is quite a good report, and it does say that there is a marginal increase in risk for high consumers of animal protein, and a lower risk from vegetable protein. So it seems that excess protein can be to blame, but not specifically due to red meat.

I must point out that Finnish men are among the highest risk individuals in the western hemisphere anyway due to being high meat consumers, high salt intake, heavy smokers, and who devour lots of fermented dairy, which the study identifies as being the main risk to them. They are also generally physically active, so having a high proponderance of deaths due to HF is a connundrum that causes concern

I know what your saying but for me I've been a heavy protein eater, all my life. Sisters had a lolly pop or chocolate I asked for mackerel or seafood.
I have NO heart failure nor any heart damage. My cardiologist explorations showed mild artherosclerosis but no heart damage. Blood pressure is checked every few months.
High blood pressure is my enemy and high sugars. Not protein. For me.
Even though my IR has significantly increased and my food choices are not great protein quality, lately.
Diet definitely affects blood pressure and glucose but with regards to heart health.... carbs mixed with fat are still the culprit in risking the heart.... I feel.

 

[Oldvatr]

I know what your saying but for me I've been a heavy protein eater, all my life. Sisters had a lolly pop or chocolate I asked for mackerel or seafood.
I have NO heart failure nor any heart damage. My cardiologist explorations showed mild artherosclerosis but no heart damage. Blood pressure is checked every few months.
High blood pressure is my enemy and high sugars. Not protein. For me.
Even though my IR has significantly increased and my food choices are not great protein quality, lately.
Diet definitely affects blood pressure and glucose but with regards to heart health.... carbs mixed with fat are still the culprit in risking the heart.... I feel.

This study showed a slight increase in HF for the highest quartile of protein intake, which given that the average Finnish man apparently consumes about 220 g of meat a day is one heck of an overdose, so the report clearly states that the rise in risk is marginal. I think the 0.7g/kg limit is set to protect the kidney function rather than HF. High protein intake is also associated with higher BP I believe, but the trial did not apparently measure this as a parameter. It does discuss this effect as a potential mechanism but does not ennumerate it.

 

[bulkbiker]

So my point that Finnish men who apparently eat 220g meat per day are overdoing it compared to the 0.7g/kg body weight we are advised to max out at here in the UK,

They were not eating 220g of of meat per day though I'm surprised to see you say this the tables are there the median average daily intake of meat for Q1 (the lowest quartile was 49.2g/day of all animal sourced protein and in Q4 (the highest quartile) median was 82.2g/day



Or have I missed something here?

 

[Oldvatr]

They were not eating 220g of of meat per day though I'm surprised to see you say this the tables are there the median average daily intake of meat for Q1 (the lowest quartile was 49.2g/day of all animal sourced protein and in Q4 (the highest quartile) median was 82.2g/day

View attachment 26887

Or have I missed something here?

The figure I used was from the WHO database for Finland as a whole for 2016.


This graphic also shows the same data of 81 kg/year in 2016.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/612739/annual-per-capita-consumption-of-meat-in-finland/

The National Statistics office for Finland (LUKE) declares that the average meat consumption in 2014 was 77 kg/year
https://www.luke.fi/en/news/eaten-finland-2016/

However North Karelia is the home of the Pritikin Diet founder, and this may have made a difference.

 

[bulkbiker]

The figure I used was from the WHO database for Finland as a whole for 2016.

I wonder where that came from? I missed your "apparently" so obviously these 2441 men were way under the national average..
Have you a link to that database? Is it freely available?

 

[Oldvatr]

I wonder where that came from? I missed your "apparently" so obviously these 2441 men were way under the national average..
Have you a link to that database? Is it freely available?

http://circheartfailure.ahajournals.../CIRCHF2017004531_Revised_Data_Supplement.pdf
See Table 4 which shows a median intake of 251g/d of total meat intake of the highest intake group.

The LUKE database is only available in abstracted form as I linked to.

The WHO database uses the various National databases so would use the LUKE data WHO do not collate raw data themselves, but rely on each nation providing the relevant statistics. The WHO data base is behind a paywall and requires their database software to access their data. There are sometimes extracts in the public domain, but I am making the assumption that the LUKE data is valid.

 

[bulkbiker]

http://circheartfailure.ahajournals.../CIRCHF2017004531_Revised_Data_Supplement.pdf
See Table 4 which shows a median intake of 251g/d of total meat intake of the highest intake group.

The LUKE database is only available in abstracted form as I linked to.

The WHO database uses the various National databases so would use the LUKE data WHO do not collate raw data themselves, but rely on each nation providing the relevant statistics. The WHO data base is behind a paywall and requires their database software to access their data. There are sometimes extracts in the public domain, but I am making the assumption that the LUKE data is valid.

Interesting that the LUKE doesn't mention fish at all whereas the study does. Also interestingly in the lowest quartile 1 there is zero fish consumption whereas in the highest there is 101g/day so wouldn't it be more likely to be higher fish consumption is worse than higher meat.. lies **** lies and .... here we go again...

 

[Oldvatr]

Interesting that the LUKE doesn't mention fish at all whereas the study does. Also interestingly in the lowest quartile 1 there is zero fish consumption whereas in the highest there is 101g/day so wouldn't it be more likely to be higher fish consumption is worse than higher meat.. lies **** lies and .... here we go again...

Possibly, but the study showed an unusual culprit - fermented dairy that they considered to be inducing the worst increase in risk, not blaming meat at all. But then the study was funded by the Finnish Agri business If you re-read their conclusion it is high protein not necessarily meat so including cheese and sour cream/ yoghurts.

Personally I class fish as meat, but WHO do have separate categories., and incidentally separate categories for offal and crustaceans. I did gain access to the WHO database, but without the special software it is difficult to extract sensible data. I did find that in 2015 the USA was the highest meat consumers at 101 kg/yr, but in 2017 it was Australia that was top at 115 kg/year. Finland ranked about 15 in the list of countries.