Dietary Management of Heart Failure: DASH Diet and Precision Nutrition Perspectives

Heart failure (HF) is a major health care burden increasing in prevalence over time. Effective, evidence-based interventions for HF prevention and management are needed to improve patient longevity, symptom control, and quality of life. Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet interventions can have a positive impact for HF patients. However, the absence of a consensus for comprehensive dietary guidelines and for pragmatic evidence limits the ability of health care providers to implement clinical recommendations. The refinement of medical nutrition therapy through precision nutrition approaches has the potential to reduce the burden of HF, improve clinical care, and meet the needs of diverse patients. The aim of this review is to summarize current evidence related to HF dietary recommendations including DASH diet nutritional interventions and to develop initial recommendations for DASH diet implementation in outpatient HF management. Articles involving human studies were obtained using the following search terms: Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH diet), diet pattern, diet, metabolism, and heart failure. Only full-text articles written in English were included in this review. As DASH nutritional interventions have been proposed, limitations of these studies are the small sample size and non-randomization of interventions, leading to less reliable evidence. Randomized controlled interventions are needed to offer definitive evidence related to the use of the DASH diet in HF management.     

Ventricular assist device implantation as a bridge to cardiac transplantation in two adolescents with end-stage cardiomyopathy and heart failure as a result of anthracycline use

In a adolescent women aged 15 and 17 years respectively, severe heart failure developed within a few months of anthracycline chemotherapy given for osteosarcoma. In the guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology, malignancy with a remission duration of less than 5 years is an absolute contraindication to cardiac transplantation. Neither patient was eligible to receive a ventricular assist device (VAD) as a bridge to cardiac transplantation in the Netherlands, but they were accepted in Germany. One patient received a cardiac transplant 13 months later and at the last follow-up check she was in good health with a remission of 3 years. The other patient developed bone metastases 6 months after the VAD implantation. Cardiac transplantation was not a treatment option for her. Dose-dependent cardiotoxicity is a serious complication of the use of anthracyclines. In severe heart failure the prognosis is often worse than in adjuvantly treated malignancies like osteosarcoma. VAD may therefore be a valid option for patients with severe heart failure after anthracycline use for a malignancy. In cases of sustained remission VAD may be the bridge to transplantation.     

Interdisciplinary Team-Based Management of Heart Failure

Multidisciplinary team disease management has evolved into consensus ‘best practice’ in the care of patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). The mission of disease management for patients with CHF is to shift care from the hospital to the clinic and to the home, optimize quality of care in concert with consensus guidelines, reduce admissions by 40% and improve functional status and quality of life. The Partners Heart Care program has been operational for 5 years and enrolled hundreds of patients throughout the Partners Health Care System in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. This program enrolls patients following hospital discharge in a physician-directed multidisciplinary interventional care program, run by nurse practitioners, which incorporates several levels of care dependent upon patient acuity. Following clinical stabilization and optimal titration of oral therapy in concert with consensus care guidelines, patients transition to a longitudinal care program. The primary responsibility for the clinical care of patients in all phases of the program resides with nurse practitioners and primary care physicians, with heart failure specialists serving as consultants on an as-needed basis. Data on pre-specified program outcomes such as quality of care, mortality, hospital admissions, functional status, procedure use and costs are collected prospectively and provide benchmarks for continuous quality improvement. The most critical lesson learned in development to date is the necessity of precise tailoring of the program to local patient and provider needs with local oversight and management.     

Special commentary: a call for intensive metabolic support

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This special commentary addresses recent clinical reviews regarding appropriate nutrition and metabolic support in the critical care setting. RECENT FINDINGS: There are divergent approaches between North America and Europe for the use of early nutrition support and combined enteral nutrition and parenteral nutrition support possibly due to the commercial availability of specific parenteral nutrients. The advent of intensive insulin therapy has changed the landscape of metabolic support in the intensive care unit, and previous notions about infective risk of parenteral nutrition will need to be re-addressed. Patients with brain failure may benefit from an intensive insulin therapy with a blood glucose target that is higher than that used in patients without brain failure. Patients with heart failure may benefit from the addition of nutritional pharmacology that targets proximate oxidative pathophysiological pathways. Intradialytic parenteral nutrition may be viewed as another form of supplemental parenteral nutrition when enteral nutrition is insufficient in patients on hemodialysis in the intensive care unit. SUMMARY: It is proposed that intensive metabolic support be routinely implemented in the intensive care unit based on the following steps: intensive insulin therapy with an appropriate blood glucose target, nutrition risk assessment, early and if needed combined enteral nutrition and parenteral nutrition to target 20-25 kcal/kg/day and 1.2-1.5 g protein/kg/day, and nutritional and metabolic monitoring.     

Enteral nutrition and drug administration, interactions, and complications.

The enteral route has become the standard of care to deliver nutrition support for hospitalized acute care and ambulatory care patients. The same access device is increasingly being used to deliver medications, which provides cost savings but also creates new challenges. Cost savings can be negated if the concomitant administration of nutrition elicits a decrease in bioavailability due to incompatibilities that alter drug or nutrition therapy. Feeding tubes can deliver nutrients and drugs to the stomach, small bowel, or both, with optimal efficacy of medications depending on delivery to the appropriate segment of the gastrointestinal tract. Liquid preparations are often the preferred formulation for enteral administration. Obstruction of the enteral access device may occur when specialized medication formulations are altered inappropriately. Occasionally, the enteral formula should be changed to modify the content of free water, fiber, electrolytes, or vitamins that may interfere with the drug therapy. Intolerance to enteral nutrition such as abdominal distention and diarrhea may be the result of the medication, and the causative agent should be identified to improve patient comfort. This article will address optimal drug delivery via enteral access devices and possible complications associated with therapy.     

Geriatric team dynamics: the dietitian's role

In 1980, a geriatric consultation team was formed at Massachusetts General Hospital to meet the complex medical, psychological, rehabilitative, nutritional, and social needs of geriatric patients. This team strives to provide elderly patients with the comprehensive care necessary to potentiate return to maximum independent functioning and to change attitudes of primary caretakers toward care of geriatric patients through increased recognition of the elderly as a heterogeneous group. The team consults on patients with changes in mental status, need for physical rehabilitation, "failure to thrive," or need for definitive planning for posthospital disposition. The dietitian conducts nutritional screening of each patient, is a nutrition resource for team members, and promotes collaboration in nutrition care planning. When the dietitian communicates nutrition concerns, goals, and care plans for patients to other health professionals, they use the information to reinforce her recommendations and integrate nutrition components into their care plans. A multidisciplinary approach has resulted in earlier identification and evaluation of functional ability, more comprehensive individualized care planning, and a reduced percentage of readmissions.     

搏动性心室辅助装置Excor治疗儿童终末期心衰

目的:评价应用气动外置式搏动性心室辅助装置(VAD)Excor(Berlin Heart AG)治疗儿童终末期心功能衰竭(ESHF)的可行性。方法:1990年至2003年 12月共55例儿童ESHF患者接受Excor心室辅助治疗。结果:6例(10．91％)心功能恢复后撤离辅助装置, 23例(41．82％)过渡到心脏移植,26例(47．27％)死亡。平均辅助时间(28．0±8．1)天,最长辅助天数421天。结论:Excor作为中、长期搏动式VAD,可辅助ESHF儿童患者向心脏移植或心功能恢复过渡。     

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition: Revised 2021 Standards of Practice and Standards of Professional Performance for Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (Competent,Proficient, and Expert) in Nutrition Support

Nutrition support is a therapy that crosses all ages, diseases, and conditions as health care practitioners strive to meet the nutritional requirements of individuals who are unable to meet nutritional and/or hydration needs with oral intake alone. Registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs), as integral members of the nutrition support team provide needed information, such as identification of malnutrition risk, macro- and micronutrient requirements, and type of nutrition support therapy (eg, enteral or parenteral), including the route (eg, nasogastric vs nasojejunal or tunneled catheter vs port). The Dietitians in Nutrition Support Dietetic Practice Group, American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, along with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Quality Management Committee, have updated the Standards of Practice (SOP) and Standards of Professional Performance (SOPP) for RDNs working in nutrition support. The SOP and SOPP for RDNs in Nutrition Support provide indicators that describe the following 3 levels of practice: competent, proficient, and expert. The SOP uses the Nutrition Care Process and clinical workflow elements for delivering patient/client care. The SOPP describes the 6 domains that focus on professional performance. Specific indicators outlined in the SOP and SOPP depict how these standards apply to practice. The SOP and SOPP are complementary resources for RDNs and are intended to be used as a self-evaluation tool for assuring competent practice in nutrition support and for determining potential education and training needs for advancement to a higher practice level in a variety of settings.     

The total artificial heart

In the 1960s, cardiac surgeons and biomedical engineers pioneered the development of total artificial hearts (TAH) for the treatment of left and right heart failure. As we mark the 10th anniversary of the first implantation of the AbioCor device, the use of TAH has been limited, having failed to reach its envisioned potential and promise as an alternative therapy to heart transplantation. The Syncardia/CardioWest device, originally developed 30 years ago as the Jarvik TAH and later renamed the CardioWest TAH, continues to be used clinically in over 50 centers within the US and Europe having supported over 900 patients worldwide. Syncardia continues to develop TAH technology as evidenced by their recent introduction of a new portable pneumatic driver that enables patients to be discharged from the hospital. In contrast to TAH devices, continuous flow ventricular assist devices (VAD) have made tremendous technological strides and are rapidly gaining widespread clinical acceptance. The VAD technology has demonstrated extraordinary safety and reliability records through evolving technologies, advanced biocompatible materials, and improved patient management. Subsequently, the number of TAH implantations remains low compared to the growth in LVAD implants. Nonetheless, the Syncardia/CardioWest TAH remains an important and viable option for patients with severe biventricular failure and end organ dysfunction. Overall, a 79% survival rate has been achieved in patients supported with a Syncardia/CardioWest TAH as bridge-to-transplantation. In this review article, a brief history on the evolution of TAH devices, their current use and emerging use of evolving continuous flow VAD technology as chronic biventricular and TAH device systems are presented.     

Managing heart failure in primary care: first steps in implementing the National Service Framework

BACKGROUND: Heart failure is common, causes considerable morbidity, and imposes a major financial burden on both society and the National Health Service. The National Service Framework (NSF) for Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) set national standards for the management of people with heart failure in England. We examined how patients with heart failure were investigated and treated compared with NSF standards, and explored the current constraints in improving the care of these patients. METHODS: This study was carried out in two general practices (total list size 19,600) in south London. Using a computer search strategy, patients with possible heart failure were identified and clinical data extracted from their medical records. Workshops on heart failure were held at a national conference on disease management in primary care, and key stakeholders were interviewed to identify constraints in improving management. RESULTS: Ninety patients with heart failure were identified through the computerized search. Seventy-eight patients (87 per cent) had a Read code for heart failure on their electronic medical record. Forty-eight (53 per cent) patients were men and 10 (12 per cent) were aged less than 65 years. Forty-nine per cent of patients had undergone an electrocardiogram and 42 per cent an echocardiogram. Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors were prescribed to 54 per cent of patients. In the workshops and stakeholder interviews, healthcare professionals and managers reported difficulties in implementing the NSF. They expressed concerns regarding the difficulties in confirming a diagnosis of heart failure, including access to echocardiograms, prescribing ACE inhibitors among older patients, and the additional workload and resources needed to ensure they met the NSF standards for heart failure. CONCLUSION: The accurate identification of heart failure patients and recording of clinical information as part of disease registers needs to improve if primary care teams are to meet the NSF standards. There is also scope to improve the investigation and treatment of heart failure patients in primary care. Achieving these objectives will require additional resources.     

Guidelines for the Provision and Assessment of Nutrition Support Therapy in the Pediatric Critically Ill Patient: Society of Critical Care Medicine and American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition

This document represents the first collaboration between 2 organizations—the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition and the Society of Critical Care Medicine—to describe best practices in nutrition therapy in critically ill children. The target of these guidelines is intended to be the pediatric critically ill patient (>1 month and <18 years) expected to require a length of stay >2–3 days in a PICU admitting medical, surgical, and cardiac patients. In total, 2032 citations were scanned for relevance. The PubMed/MEDLINE search resulted in 960 citations for clinical trials and 925 citations for cohort studies. The EMBASE search for clinical trials culled 1661 citations. In total, the search for clinical trials yielded 1107 citations, whereas the cohort search yielded 925. After careful review, 16 randomized controlled trials and 37 cohort studies appeared to answer 1 of the 8 preidentified question groups for this guideline. We used the GRADE criteria (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) to adjust the evidence grade based on assessment of the quality of study design and execution. These guidelines are not intended for neonates or adult patients. The guidelines reiterate the importance of nutrition assessment—particularly, the detection of malnourished patients who are most vulnerable and therefore may benefit from timely intervention. There is a need for renewed focus on accurate estimation of energy needs and attention to optimizing protein intake. Indirect calorimetry, where feasible, and cautious use of estimating equations and increased surveillance for unintended caloric underfeeding and overfeeding are recommended. Optimal protein intake and its correlation with clinical outcomes are areas of great interest. The optimal route and timing of nutrient delivery are areas of intense debate and investigations. Enteral nutrition remains the preferred route for nutrient delivery. Several strategies to optimize enteral nutrition during critical illness have emerged. The role of supplemental parenteral nutrition has been highlighted, and a delayed approach appears to be beneficial. Immunonutrition cannot be currently recommended. Overall, the pediatric critical care population is heterogeneous, and a nuanced approach to individualizing nutrition support with the aim of improving clinical outcomes is necessary.     

Nutrition care activities and DRGs

The recent passage and implementation of the prospective payment system (PPS) for Medicare inpatient services have had a strong impact on dietitians practicing in southern Florida. Because several local hospitals service regions in which 90% of the population is 65 years old or older, the annual revenues from Medicare have been reduced. The hospitals still have to meet basic overhead costs and profit margins. This has resulted in the elimination of several dietetic positions. Therefore, dietitians need to establish a cost-benefit justification for the nutrition care and support of patients. This study is the initial phase of a plan to define the nutrition care services the dietitian provides and to identify the most frequently occurring diagnosis related grouping (DRG) categories. For 3 weeks, 31 dietitians maintained logs that detailed dietetic intervention and treatment for each of the 3,827 patients seen. The nutrition care activities reported most frequently by dietitians were basic services, hospital visit and reassessment, initial consultation, and screening to rule out malnutrition. The mean time spent in all nutrition care activities ranged from 13 to 33 minutes. The most frequently occurring DRGs were those for diabetes, heart failure, circulatory disorders, specific cerebrovascular accident, and transient ischemic attacks. Overall, the type of nutrition care activities and the time spent in those activities were significantly different among the hospitals studied. The differences reflect the philosophies of each facility. The types of DRG categories observed reflect the age of the population served.     

Parenteral nutrition (PN) use for adult hospitalized patients: a study of usage in a tertiary medical center.

The use of parenteral nutrition (PN) is essential for patients who are unable to meet their nutrition requirements through oral or enteral nutrition. Many earlier studies have noted that PN is often inappropriately used in the hospital setting, thereby increasing the risk of associated complications and costs. A prospective study was performed at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), using a nutrition support database to determine the appropriateness of PN use and the associated hospital costs for patients on 3 surgical services over a 6-month period. Appropriateness of PN therapy was determined according to the American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.) guidelines. A total of 139 new PN therapies were initiated in the 6-month period. Forty percent of the cases were deemed inappropriate. A total of 573 PN days ($80,000 hospital PN costs) could have been saved if inappropriate PN therapy had not been ordered. The avoidable costs only reflect the PN solution and not the additional costs associated with laboratory monitoring, central line placement and maintenance care, nursing administration, and ongoing pharmacy and dietitian clinical management. This study illustrated that PN was not always being provided according to A.S.P.E.N. guidelines. In addition, cost savings could be achieved if PN was provided only to MUSC patients who meet these guidelines.     

Current practices for home enteral nutrition

Home enteral nutrition support is a rapidly expanding area providing new challenges for the clinical dietitian. It begins with identification of appropriate candidates based on their physical condition, home environment, and goals of therapy. A thorough nutrition assessment is performed to determine macronutrient and micronutrient needs. Considerations for formula selection include the form and source of nutrients, cost, and goals of therapy. Administration may be by a bolus, intermittent gravity drip, continuous infusion, or cyclic infusion method. Selection of an appropriate access route should consider the length of therapy, medical condition, pathology of the gastrointestinal tract, and the infusion method. Discharge teaching should stress maintenance of the patency and tube position, accurate formula delivery, and proper use of equipment and supplies. Issues involving reimbursement and financial responsibility should be addressed before the home therapy is initiated. Home patients should be monitored and reassessed regularly to update the plan of care and goals of therapy. Vendors should be selected on the basis of their capability to meet the patient's needs. If all phases are implemented, home enteral nutrition is a safe and acceptable means of nutrient delivery.     

综合营养评估工具在心衰患者中的应用价值

目的 对心衰患者所采用的综合营养评估工具及应用价值进行综述，为我国心衰患者的营养相关研究提供理论基础。方法 以“营养”、“心力衰竭”、“nutrition”、“heart failure”等为关键词，查询PubMed、Web of Science、知网等数据库相关文献，综述材料。结果 对心衰患者运用的综合营养评估工具种类较多，各量表信效度较高，营养风险和营养不良检出率较好，但均为普适量表，测评内容不能与心衰患者的临床特征完全相符，开发针对心衰患者的营养评估工具处于起步阶段。结论 综合营养评估工具对心衰患者的营养评估效果较好，未来需要加强针对心衰患者营养量表的研究。     

Heart Failure,Supraventricular Tachycardia,and Cardiomyopathy

Abstract

Noninvasive ventilation (NIV) has become an integral part of critical care management. Despite > 2 decades of experience, it is relatively underused, with general utilization reported as a little over 10% in a recent international survey. Lack of training, knowledge, equipment, and experience with NIV may account for its slow adoption. Patient selection, staff training and experience, and prompt recognition of ineffective NIV are important components to successful application of NIV. Noninvasive ventilation does have a learning curve that may be steep for some institutions but must be mastered if the procedure is to become a successful institutional component of care. Patients with acute respiratory failure due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or congestive heart failure are ideal candidates for NIV, and optimal efficacy in associated conditions is often linked to these 2 conditions. Technical issues and written guidelines are addressed, including details of an adequate trial of therapy as well as criteria for intubation. Attention to these elements should increase the success rate of NIV, which in turn should increase its general use.     

Nutrition assessment in long-term care.

Assessment of nutrition status is necessary in long-term care settings for both optimal patient care and to meet regulatory standards. Careful nutrition assessment leads to development of an individual plan of care to optimize nutrition status. Although the Minimum Data Set is mandated as the nutrition assessment tool in long-term care settings, published studies show that the use of the Minimum Data Set to assess nutrition status is problematic. Two types of nutrition assessment instruments have been developed. The first type aims to identify those at risk for malnutrition but is not used to diagnose clinical malnutrition, whereas the second type has been designed to diagnose malnutrition. A number of commonly used nutrition assessment tools have not been validated in long-term care populations. This review focuses on the available tools used in the long-term care setting and provides an overview of their characteristics and performance measures.     

Bridging the guideline-practice gap in critical care nutrition: a review of guideline implementation studies

Several clinical practice guidelines focusing on nutrition therapy in mechanically ventilated, critically ill patients are available to assist busy critical care practitioners in making decisions regarding feeding their patients. However, large gaps have been observed between guideline recommendations and actual practice. To be effective in optimizing nutrition practice, guideline development must be followed by systematic guideline implementation strategies. Systematic reviews of studies evaluating guideline implementation interventions outside the critical care setting found that these strategies, such as reminders, educational outreach, and audit and feedback, produce modest to moderate improvements in processes of care, with considerable variation observed both within and across studies. Unfortunately, the optimal strategies to implement guidelines in the intensive care unit are poorly understood, with scarce data available to guide our decisions on which strategies to use. The authors identified 3 cluster randomized trials evaluating the implementation of nutrition guidelines in the critical care setting. These studies demonstrated small improvements in nutrition practice, but no significant effect on patient outcomes. There are some data to suggest that tailoring guideline implementation strategies to overcome identified barriers to change might be a more effective approach than the multifaceted "one size fits all" strategy used in previous studies. Adopting this tailored approach to guideline implementation in future studies may help bridge the current guideline-practice gap and lead to significant improvements in nutrition practices and patient outcomes.     

Readiness of food composition databases and food component analysis systems for nutrigenomics

The two-fold purpose of this paper is to examine the adequacy of food composition databases and dietary assessment techniques to meet the needs of nutritional genomic research and to explore the challenges and opportunities presented by the emerging field of nutrigenomics to future development of food composition databases and food composition analysis systems. A review of published literature and the Internet for organizations and their ongoing dialogues were used to explore how current food composition databases and nutritional assessment methodology could be made more useful in nutrigenomics research. An outline of current projects and potential approaches to develop more reliable and cost-effective methods for the study of nutrigenomics in diverse populations is presented. Many issues related to these dietary and database methodologies need to be addressed and overcome if nutrigenomics is to reach its potential for promoting optimal health through better individualization of diet and physical activity recommendations. To meet the complex research and clinical challenges of individualizing nutrition and health care, a network of diverse health care professionals and scientists is needed to move the world toward optimal health practices.