Western Diet and Inflammatory Mechanisms in African American Adults With Heart Failure.

Only 31 participants were studied, so these results are preliminary and not stable enough to guide care. The design was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that diet, pork, BMI, TMAO, or TNF-alpha caused anything. The study did not correct for multiple comparisons, so some reported associations may be false positives. The paper did not report a primary outcome or test a treatment, and it did not measure heart failure symptoms, hospitalization, or death. Data were collected remotely during the pandemic using self-collected dried blood spots and self-report diet, which may add measurement error. The sample was limited to self-identified Black, African American, and Afro-Caribbean adults with chronic heart failure stages II to IV in one Southeast academic center, so results may not apply to other groups.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The supplied publication types list NIH extramural and non-U.S. government research support.

Do not tell patients that eating pork raises heart failure inflammation or that reducing pork will improve outcomes. This was a 31-person cross-sectional pilot that measured blood markers, not symptoms, hospitalizations, or death, and it did not test a diet change.