Steps to prevent heart failure can also help improve managing your symptoms. Medication therapy and regular check-ins with your doctor are a big part, but there’s also growing evidence that lifestyle habits can have a huge impact.
“Some patients are referred to cardiac rehab which is a guided exercise program to help get patients moving,” Worme explains. “And we give them advice on heart healthy eating.”
Regular physical activity, not smoking, managing stress, getting good sleep are all connected to heart health. Diet patterns and heart failure research studied by University of California researchers,
published in Nutrients in December 2021
landed on the DASH diet – Dietary Approached to Stop Hypertension – as showing the most positive effect (although more research is called for). The plan, developed in the late 1990s, limits salt, sugar and saturated fat, and emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy.
But it’s a multifaceted lifestyle approach that works best, combining diet, exercise and pharmacological therapy for improved heart failure outcomes.
“As we start seeing more and more increase in BMI (body mass index) and increase in weight in our population on average, we’re seeing an increase in cardiovascular risk factors and patients at higher risk of all types of heart disease, and certainly heart failure,” says Worme.