Abstract P028: Fruit and Vegetable Consumption and the Risk of Heart Failure in Women

Abstract

Background: Although numerous studies have investigated fruit and vegetable consumption in association with cardiovascular disease, a limited number of studies have investigated the association with heart failure specifically. The aim of this study was to assess the association between fruit and vegetable consumption and the incidence of heart failure among middle-aged and elderly women. Methods: In September 1997, 33,669 women (aged 49-83 y) from the Swedish Mammography Cohort free of cancer, CVD and diabetes at baseline completed a food-frequency questionnaire. Women were followed for incident heart failure (hospitalization or mortality of heart failure as the primary cause) through December 2011 using administrative health registries. Cox proportional hazard models were used to calculate relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). In multivariable models we adjusted for age at baseline, educational level, smoking status, body mass index, physical activity, hypertension, diabetes, family history of myocardial infarction, alcohol consumption, total energy intake, and dietary supplement use. Results: During 13.1 years of follow-up (442,324 person-years), we identified 1407 incident cases of heart failure. Total fruit and vegetable consumption was inversely associated with the risk of heart failure (the multivariable-adjusted RR in the highest quintile compared to the lowest was 0.81 (95% CI: 0.68-0.97, p for trend=0.03). When investigating fruit and vegetables separately we observed a statistically significant lower risk for vegetables (RR: 0.82; 95% CI: 0.69-0.98, p for trend=0.10) but not for fruits (RR: 0.94; 95% CI: 0.79-1.12, p for trend=0.24). Conclusions: In this population-based prospective cohort study of women, higher total consumption of fruits and vegetables was inversely associated with the risk of heart failure.