Heart failure and nutrition

Diet and nutrition are important. How? A diet reduced in sodium can improve your heart health.

When you eat a lot of sodium, your body holds, or retains, more water to handle the extra sodium. This extra fluid causes your heart to work harder.

You will have fewer symptoms of heart failure and you will feel better if you:

Limit the amount of sodium you eat to keep from retaining extra fluids.
Maintain a good weight for you.
Eat healthful, well-balanced meals.
Talk with your health care provider about the use of caffeine and alcohol.

Fluid intake

Heart failure is sometimes treated by reducing the amount of fluids you drink. Your health care provider may recommend that you limit how much fluid you drink and eat in a day.

Limit salt

A diet high in sodium can be harmful. With heart failure, your heart cannot pump as well as it once did. A higher volume of water as a result of increased sodium increases the work of your heart as it pumps blood throughout your body.

Ways to reduce sodium in your diet

Get started with a low-sodium diet by using our low sodium suggested list of foods (requires Adobe Reader), trying some heart-smart and low-sodium recipes and checking out our list of recommended cookbooks.

Remove the salt shaker. Do not have it in the kitchen when you cook or on the table when you eat.

Try new seasonings.

Herbs and spices do not contain sodium. Instead of salt, try our herb blend recipe and spice blend recipe.
Check food labels to make sure they do not contain salt or sodium.
You may use flavored vinegar, sherry, wine and lemon juice for flavoring.
See Great low-sodium meals and flavorings.

Beware of commercially prepared salt substitutes.

Most salt substitutes are made of potassium chloride.
Your health care provider must OK the use of a salt substitute because it can interfere with the action of some medicines or medical conditions.
Using a salt substitute does not allow you to wean yourself from the craving for salt.

Reduce or eliminate salt in your cooking.

Many recipes do not need salt.
If salt is needed for the flavor of the food, reduce the amount slowly. Start by reducing it by one-quarter, then by one-half, then by three-quarters.
Do not add salt to processed foods.

Did you know? A craving for salf is a learned response that can be unlearned. Within 1 to 3 months of limiting salt, cravings will less and even disappear.

Eliminate obviously salty foods. These include:

flavored or seasoned salts
pickles
olives and sauerkraut packaged in salt brine
canned soups
salted snacks

Learn to read food labels.

Figure out one serving size.
Compare one serving size to the amount you eat.
Figure out how much sodium the product contains for your serving size.

Low sodium is 140 milligrams or fewer per serving. Beware of 400 to 600 milligrams (or more) of sodium per serving.

Beware of ingredients that contain sodium such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), sodium nitrate, sodium benzoate and sodium bicarbonate.

For more about food label reading, see Heart-healthy shopping.

Learn how to dine out. See Heart-healthy dining out.