Congestive heart failure diet

Congestive heart failure diet should be focused on avoiding salt, lipids (especially animal fats) and alcohol. Enjoying the food we eat is very important, but in time, patients with congestive heart failure will learn to like foods with lower amounts of salt. Salt is one of the most feared “enemies” for patients with heart disease, because it favors water retention and increases heart labor, edema (water retention in the tissues) and worsens heart failure symptoms.

Why is it so important to know and respect  the congestive heart failure diet?

Congestive heart failure diet is important to be respected in order to increase quality of life and slow down the disease evolution. Everyone who reads the sentence above may wonder how can congestive heart failure diet increase the quality of life, when we suppose to give up on so many daily “pleasures”. It is hard to imagine that after a so called “normal” life, when we could eat everything we wanted, one day we have to change our life and eating style completely with a congestive heart failure diet plan . Many patients are tempted to skip these rules, thinking that their physician wouldn’t notice or that a few exceptions from time to time wouldn’t harm anyone.
A congestive heart failure diet that includes avoiding lipids is a fact well known by everyone, but also by few respected. We read in many articles that there are good and bad fats and that fats will increase body weight, however, many patients with heart disease don’t respect congestive heart failure diet and gain weight even after their physician recommended they should lose weight. Once the patients become overweight, the risk of developing diabetes, atherosclerosis and therefore hypertension, coronary disease (which determines chest pain, a very often symptom among patients with coronary disease), heart attacks or strokes increases. Good fats are a source of omega-3 fatty acids, found mostly in cold-water fish, nuts, oils and seeds, and also in dark leafy greens, flaxseed oils and some vegetable oils. Omega-3 fatty acid is an “essential fatty acid,” which cannot be synthesized by our bodies, the only source for this is food. Congestive heart failure diet should contain Omega-3 fatty acids, because these essential acids can lower blood pressure, combat LDL (bad) cholesterol, also it is thought to play a role in brain protection.
Congestive heart failure diet should definitely exclude alcohol, although this is not a type of food it is often used for different, most of them groundless reasons, like routine, entourage acceptance, digestion, pain relieve. Chronic alcohol consumption can determine a type of dilated cardiomyopathy which in time will lead to congestive heart failure. However, small amounts of wine it is considered to have a favorable impact, due to its antioxidant features.
A correct congestive heart failure diet should also contain limited amounts of foods rich in sugar or carbohydrates (the main source of energy for the body, transformed into blood sugar, mostly glucose, the body’s basic fuel and also the main source of calories) like: cookies, chocolate, candies, biscuits, sweet fruits like banana, pears, strawberries, sugar as such, honey, milk, popcorn, green peas, sweet potatoes etc.

Please consult your medic about a congestive heart failure diet, and don’t eat random.