Nutritional treatment for heart failure patients

Heart failure is a serious and increasing public health problem around the world, and is the common endpoint of most heart diseases. Despite recent medical advances, little attention has been given to the non-pharmacological treatments, specifically, to nutritional therapy. The clinical course of patients with heart failure constantly progresses to varying degrees of malnutrition caused by different factors and not necessarily related to body mass index. Thus, the objective of this study was to search the literature for evidences of a proper diet composition for heart failure patients. The Medline, Pubmed, Lilacs and SciELO databases, and the national and international health committees were systematically searched for articles published between 1981 and 2006. There were few well-designed studies on proper diet therapies for heart failure patients. The ones reviewed focused on restricting table salt and liquids but gave little attention to the amount and quality of other nutrients. There is growing evidence that diet is an important factor in the prognosis and treatment of these patients. However, future studies, including clinical trials with adequate numbers of participants, are necessary if nutritional supplements are to be safely prescribed.