Nutritional risk is associated with long term mortality in hospitalized patients with chronic heart failure

SummaryBackground & aimsMortality among patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) is still high despite progress in medical and surgical treatment. The patients' nutritional condition may play an important role, and needs further investigation. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether nutritional risk in hospitalized patients with CHF was associated with three-year mortality.MethodsA prospective study was conducted in 131 hospitalized Norwegian patients with CHF. Nutritional screening was performed using Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS-2002). The primary clinical outcome was death from any cause.ResultsThe prevalence of nutritional risk was 57% (NRS-2002 score ≥ 3). The overall mortality rate was 52.6% within three-year follow up. More patients at nutritional risk (N = 51) died compared to patients not at nutritional risk (N = 18) (P