Mostly meat, high protein diet linked to heart failure in older women

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-11/aha-mmh110316.php

Public Release: 14-Nov-2016
Mostly meat, high protein diet linked to heart failure in older women
American Heart Association Meeting Report - Presentation: 627 - Session: EP.RFO.28
American Heart Association

Women over the age of 50 who follow a high-protein diet could be at higher risk for heart failure, especially if much of their protein comes from meat, according to preliminary research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2016.

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While women who ate higher amounts of vegetable protein appeared to have less heart failure, the association was not significant when adjusted for body mass.

"Higher calibrated total dietary protein intake appears to be associated with substantially increased heart failure risk while vegetable protein intake appears to be protective, although additional studies are needed to further explore this potential association," said Mohamad Firas Barbour, M.D., study author and internist at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island, in Pawtucket.

The findings were true regardless of age, race or ethnicity, level of education, or if the women had high blood pressure (2.9 percent), diabetes (8.3 percent), coronary artery disease (7.1 percent), anemia (3.4 percent), or atrial fibrillation (4.9 percent).

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Researchers said other studies have found a link between increased protein from meat and cardiovascular risk in women.

"Our findings should be interpreted with caution, but it appears that following a high-protein diet may increase heart failure risk," Barbour said.

Because dietary self-reporting can be unreliable, the team also used special biomarker data to accurately calibrate daily protein intake - doubly labeled water and urinary nitrogen. Doubly labeled water uses non-radioactive tracers to evaluate a person's metabolic energy while urinary nitrogen is used to determine actual amounts of dietary protein.

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