Meal and Snack time Distribution may improve Heart attack Survival.

Researchers suggest that the new findings, which are based mostly on 15 years' worth of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), may be used to argue against time-restricted diet therapies like intermittent fasting for HF patients. Regardless of daily calorie consumption, patients with heart failure (HF) who space out their meals and snacks throughout the day may benefit from a lower risk of cardiovascular (CV) death, according to an observational study.

A mean daily eating window of 11 hours and an average of four "eating occasions," which are defined as meals or snacks with at least 50 kcal, were reported by the study's roughly 1000 HF patients receiving medical treatment.

According to research presented on October 7 at the Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting by Hayley E. Billingsley, RD, CEP, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, a daily eating window of 11 or more hours compared to less than 11 hours corresponded to a greater than 40% drop in risk for CV mortality (P =.013) over 5 to 6 years.

The analysis made adjustments for calorie consumption, daily eating frequency, body mass index (BMI), family history of cancer, diabetes, and a wide range of other potential confounders.

Billingsley told theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology that prior research, largely involving healthy individuals, revealed that prolonged daytime fasting is linked to a reduction in physical activity. Therefore, it's possible that HF sufferers who spread out their caloric intake are more active throughout the day.

Therefore, a prolonged window for eating may have indirect metabolic advantages and aid in maintaining their lean body mass, thereby lowering cardio-vascular risk in a patient population at risk for muscle wasting.