Speaker

Justin A. Ezekowitz, MBBCh, MSc
Professor of Medicine and Alberta Health Services Chair in Cardiac Sciences
Director, Cardiovascular Research
Co-Director, Canadian VIGOUR Centre
University of Alberta

Cardiologist, Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute

 

Slides

 

Keywords

PCORnet; COVID-19; Electronic health record (EHR); Surveillance data

 

Key Points

• Prior randomized controlled studies on dietary intake of sodium have shown no consistent or conclusive results.

• SODIUM-HF is a pragmatic randomized trial of 806 patients in 6 countries with heart failure randomized to usual care or a low-sodium diet (≤1500 mg/day NA) and followed for 12 months. The primary outcome measures were mortality, hospitalizations, and emergency department (ED) visits.

• Patients started out around 2200 mg of dietary sodium per day. The usual care group showed little reduction while the SODIUM intervention group saw a 28% reduction to around 1658 mg per day.

• The intervention group did not have a statistically significant positive outcome for the primary endpoints of mortality, hospitalizations, or ED visits.

• Patients reported a modestly higher quality of life after 6 and 12 months on the lower sodium diet as reported on the KCCQ quality of life questionnaire.

• As part of an overall health strategy, clinicians may want to encourage a low sodium diet for patients with HF as a therapy to improve a patient’s quality of life.

Discussion Themes

– The top 3 challenges to the SODIUM-HF study were finding patients willing to change their diet, maintaining fidelity to the study intervention across multiple sites, and the impact of COVID on recruitment.

– No study sites were in the US due to cost restrictions.

– Efficacy trials are still very important and we need to get better at funding them and running them for longer periods.

Read more about the SODIUM-HF trial and results from the study.

Tags

#pctGR, @Collaboratory1