Hospital meal intake in acute heart failure patients and its association with long-term outcomes

Background: Risk prediction for hospitalised heart failure (HF, HHF) patients remains suboptimal. We aimed to determine the prognostic value of hospital food intake (FI) immediately before discharge among HHF patients. Method: We analysed the data of 255 HHF patients extracted from the records of a single university hospital. The FI percentage of the three meals the day before hospital discharge was averaged. Patients were stratified into adequate FI (100% consumption) and inadequate FI (less than 100% consumption) groups. The primary outcome was the composite of all-cause mortality and/or HF readmission within 1 year. Results: Only 49.3% of HHF patients consumed 100% of their meals. Patients with inadequate FI were older; predominantly women; and had a lower body mass index, higher brain natriuretic peptide levels and Clinical Frailty Scale scores at discharge than those with adequate FI. Inadequate FI was significantly associated with adverse outcomes after adjustments (HR 2.00; 95% CI 1.09 to 3.67; p=0.026). The effect of interaction by ejection fraction (EF) was highly significant: HF with preserved EF (≥40%) was significantly associated with inadequate FI with adverse outcomes (HR 4.95; 95% CI 1.71 to 14.36; p=0.003) but HF with reduced EF (<40%) was not (HR 0.77; 95% CI 0.31 to 1.95; p=0.590). Conclusions: The hospital FI assessment might be a simple, useful tool for predicting and stratifying risk for HHF patients.