Healthy diets linked to lower cardiovascular risk among cancer survivors

A cohort study linked higher adherence to several healthy dietary patterns with lower risk of cardiovascular disease among cancer survivors. The UK Biobank analysis included 8,716 survivors with no ischemic heart disease, heart failure or stroke at baseline. Their mean age was 59.5 years, 62% were women, and median follow-up was 12.3 years. During follow-up, 1,116 participants experienced one of those conditions, according to ACC.

Compared with participants in the lowest adherence quintile, those in the highest had lower cardiovascular risk for the Mediterranean diet (HR 0.72), MIND (0.74), AHEI-2010 (0.63), DASH (0.65), healthful plant-based diet (0.82), reversed energy-adjusted dietary inflammatory index (0.67) and healthy low-fat diet (0.80). The researchers reported no reduced risk with a healthy low-carbohydrate diet. At age 45, researchers estimated that participants with the highest adherence had 1.66 to 3.32 years longer life expectancy than those with the lowest.