Elevated dietary inflammation independently predicts poorer long-term survival in older CHD cohorts, with each 1-unit DII increase associated with 11% higher all-cause mortality hazard, though prospective clinical trials are required to validate the therapeutic potential of anti-inflammatory dietary patterns.
Higher Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) scores were independently associated with greater all-cause mortality among older adults with coronary heart disease.
Participants in the highest DII quartile had a higher all-cause mortality hazard than those in the lowest quartile, with a significant trend across quartiles.
The dose-response relationship between DII and all-cause mortality was linear.
The association between DII and mortality was consistent across subgroups of gender, body mass index, and metabolic status.
The study used NHANES data with DII calculated from a single 24-hour dietary recall and linked mortality follow-up.
The authors conclude that shifting toward anti-inflammatory dietary patterns might reduce mortality risk in older CHD patients, but this requires validation in prospective trials.
This study looked at whether the inflammatory potential of a person's diet is linked to the risk of dying among older adults with coronary heart disease. Researchers used data from 1012 U.S. adults aged 65 and older with heart disease who took part in national health surveys between 2007 and 2018. Each person's diet was scored with the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) based on a 24-hour recall of what they ate, and participants were then followed for deaths from any cause. There were 460 deaths during follow-up. The researchers found that people whose diets had higher inflammatory scores were more likely to die during follow-up. Each 1-unit increase in DII was associated with an 11% higher risk of death, and those in the most inflammatory quartile had a 14% higher risk than those in the least inflammatory quartile. The relationship followed a straight-line pattern, and it looked similar for men and women, across body weight categories, and across metabolic subgroups. This research suggests that a more pro-inflammatory diet may be linked to poorer survival in older people with heart disease. However, this is an observational study using a single day of dietary recall, so it cannot prove that changing diet would extend life. The authors note that prospective clinical trials are needed to test whether shifting to anti-inflammatory eating patterns actually reduces mortality.
Wang N, Chen X, Li H, Qi C. (2026). Association between DII and all-cause mortality among older adults with coronary heart disease: A cohort study.. Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000051350