Dietary patterns and the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality: a population-based cohort study of older British men

Abstract

Although diet quality is implicated in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, few studies have investigated the relationship between overall diet quality and the risk of CVD and mortality in older adults in Great Britain (1) . The Elderly Dietary Index (EDI) was developed to address adherence to nutritional recommendations for older adults, based on the frequency of consumption of specific foods/food groups (2) . However, the EDI has not been compared to other widely used dietary indices such as the Healthy Diet Indicator (HDI), based on the World Health Organization’s dietary guidelines for intake of nutrients and food components (3) . The aim of this study was to prospectively examine associations between dietary patterns (HDI and EDI) and risk of CVD and all-cause mortality in older British men. 4252 older men (aged 60‐79 years) from the British Regional Heart Study, were followed-up for a mean period of 11.3 years for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Baseline food frequency questionnaire data were used to generate two overall dietary scores ‐ HDI and EDI, with higher scores indicating greater compliance with dietary recommendations. Cox proportional hazards regression analyses assessed associations between tertiles of HDI/EDI and risk of all-cause mortality, CVD mortality, CVD events and coronary heart disease (CHD) events, adjusting for age, smoking, alcohol, physical activity, social class, body mass index and energy intake.