How diet affects heart failure in men

[andrewducker]

I'm feeling a bit confused by some reporting - various headlines recently reported that protein was linked to heart disease.

But when you look at the actual research it says:
Those in the highest intake quartile of fermented dairy products had multivariable-adjusted 62% higher risk of HF when compared with the lowest quartile (...) Nonfermented dairy intake had no association with HF risk (...). Intakes of total meat or any meat subtype, fish, eggs, or main vegetable protein sources did not have statistically significant associations with HF risk (...)

And also:
did not observe protein from fish (...) to associate with HF risk. (...) Intakes of meat protein, total meat, or any meat subtype were not associated with HF risk, either

Which indicates to me that the only protein which actually affects heart failure chances is fermented dairy. i.e. cheese, yoghurt, and sour cream.

Am I reading this correctly?

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

Cheese? NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[morpheme]

"Cheese? no!", seems appropriate, actually...

"In more detailed analyses, protein from other fermented dairy products (98.4% contained ≤2.5% fat) had a stronger association with HF than protein from cheese (Table 2)."

So buttermilk, sour cream, yoghurt.

They checked total dairy, which had increased risk, then broke it down to

fermented - increased risk
vs
non-fermented - ok.

and then broke down fermented:

cheese: ok
vs
other fermented: increased risk.

On the other hand they also found lower incidence of fatal and non-fatal CHD with the same cohort for fermented dairy, so go fig.

Short story long -- thi study adds to overall pitcure, but is not conclusive in and of itself.

[rhythmaning]

On the extracts you've posted, yes. (Sorry, I can't face reading the original.)

I wouldn't think it warranted headlines other than "killer cheese causes heart failure!"

[mountainkiss]

Killer cheese will get you far more quickly than through heart failure. Don't walk through dark alleys alone at night.

[danieldwilliam]

A city under siege. A town without hope. For Killer Cheese stalks the streets.

It's veins throb to the atavastic rhythm of penicillium. It's eyes bulge with the effects of the most dangerous of chemicals known to Man.

Who can resist the dark temptation of their evil whey? Who will stand against the Cheeses of the Night?

[lilysea]

Well, there was a headline recently that red meat -> heart disease, but only in people who are allergic to it.

Allergen in red meat linked to heart disease
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180614095229.htm

[franklanguage]

Actually, that article seems to say that red meat increases the probability of heart disease in anyone who consumes it, but in the subgroup of people who have the allergy to red meat, the risk is increased.

Or am I reading it wrong?

[emperorzombie]

There's a significant association with total animal protein which is also in the abstract, so generalising it to 'protein' doesn't seem like a huge jump. It's true that they see the biggest association with fermented dairy and not with other groups, but I don't think they can prove that the general risk from protein is entirely due to the association with fermented dairy - it might be they don't have the power to show a significant association in the other subgroups because it's a small effect size. They also note that their cohort eats a lot of dairy, their highest quartile for fermented dairy is >281 g/d, which I think is grams per day... that is a lot of cheese and yogurt.

[agoodwinsmith]

Based on reading the study, I *think* they are saying: "*Something* is going on here, we're pretty sure of that, but we're not quite sure what. We're pretty sure, mostly, that is has to do with protein, unless it doesn't."

I found this statement, immediately under the subtitle METHOD, to be puzzling: "The data, analytic methods, and study materials will not be made available to other researchers for purposes of reproducing the results or replicating the procedure." Is the "not" supposed to be in there, and if so, why?

[reverancepavane]

Possibly because of medical confidentiality issues, where they would need the patients permissions to share the data. Especially if the research was not actually performed as a double-blind or with sufficient anonymisation of the data.

[agoodwinsmith]

Hmm - maybe. I mean: they cross-referenced the death register to see who passed away from HF, so that implies a lot of personal data for a match. But it sounded like the original study was already public domain, or they wouldn't have been able to use it. It sounded like this stuff is just lying around waiting for further mining.

[emperorzombie]

Sounds to me like a boilerplate sentence, and actually if you look at other papers in that journal they all have a very similar sentence about data availability, so I think they were meeting a journal obligation to disclose that they are not making the data available.

... and another thing ...

[agoodwinsmith]

One thing the study doesn't mention (although they may have addressed it in controlling for lifestyle or something), but there are groups of people with predisposition towards heart issues. Up until the 70's (ish), the men in my Dad's family mostly didn't make it out of their 50's. A few of my cousins haven't made it. My Dad and his younger brother are now both in their 80's, but have been under doctor's care since their 40's. The actual dietary guidelines keep changing (eggs were bad, now good; margarine was good, now bad, etc etc), but what I think is really at work for them is that at the first sign of anything their doctors pounce.

So, my Dad and uncle became a cheese-oholics as a replacement for the red meat they were to eat less of. Now a diet record for them would show low red-meat and high cheese, but does that mean the cheese is the cause of the heart issues? Nope.

[skington]

Does whey protein count as “will give you heart disease” under that definition? Fitness people eat a lot of whey.

[melchar]

My dearest beloved has always disliked/avoided cheese. This will just add fuel to his fervor.

[He calls the urge to slap cheese onto a hamburger at all eateries to be a product of 'the Cheese Conspiracy']

[momentsmusicaux]

Why yes, that is one small aspect of our work. How good of him to notice! We strive to increase cheese presence in all aspects of life.

[franklanguage]

He calls the urge to slap cheese onto a hamburger at all eateries to be a product of 'the Cheese Conspiracy'

People go willingly to Cheese and crave it because of casomorphin; hence there is no conspiracy.

[agoodwinsmith]

Thank you for this link.