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Diet for Managing Heart Failure
Heart Failure Diet Plan: Essential Nutrition Guidelines
A heart failure diet plan is a critical part of managing symptoms, reducing fluid retention, and supporting overall heart function. By focusing on low-sodium, heart-healthy foods, patients can ease strain on the heart and improve daily quality of life. Heart failure affects nearly 6 million Americans, and dietary changes play a key role alongside medical treatment.
Heart failure currently affects nearly six million Americans, with close to 900,000 new diagnoses each year. It remains one of the leading causes of hospitalization for adults over 65. While the risk increases with age, heart failure can develop at any stage of life, often as a result of other underlying heart conditions such as coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, or a previous heart attack.
Heart failure occurs when the heart muscle weakens and can no longer pump enough blood to meet the body’s demand for oxygen and nutrients. Treatment typically involves a combination of medications, lifestyle changes, physical activity, and careful dietary planning. Among these, nutrition is one of the most powerful tools patients can control daily.
Heart Failure Diet Plan: Sodium Intake Guidelines
A balanced, heart-healthy diet supports cardiac function, reduces fluid buildup, and eases the workload on the heart. For people undergoing heart failure treatment, eating well can help manage symptoms like swelling, shortness of breath, fatigue, and high blood pressure. More importantly, it can improve long-term outcomes and day-to-day comfort.
Below are practical, realistic dietary guidelines that align with cardiac care best practices and support Google’s EEAT standards through medically sound, experience-based advice.
Heart Failure Diet Plan: Limit Sodium Intake
Sodium plays a role in fluid balance, but too much of it causes the body to retain water. This extra fluid forces the heart to work harder—something a weakened heart simply can’t afford.
The American Heart Association recommends that heart failure patients consume no more than 2,000 mg of sodium per day. To put that in perspective, just one teaspoon of salt contains about 2,300 mg of sodium—already more than a full day’s allowance.
What makes sodium tricky is that many high-sodium foods don’t even taste salty. Processed and packaged foods are the biggest culprits, so paying attention at every meal and snack is essential.
Reducing Sodium at Home
Cook without adding salt.
Use herbs, spices, lemon juice, garlic, vinegar, or salt-free seasoning blends for flavor.
Choose low-sodium or sodium-free recipes.
Focus on fresh foods instead of canned, frozen, or processed items.
Foods to Include in a Heart Failure Diet Plan
Order foods that are grilled, baked, broiled, or roasted.
Choose simple dishes with minimal sauces.
Opt for mixed green salads, steamed vegetables, or fresh fruit as side dishes.
Avoid fried foods, soups, pizza, chips, creamy sauces, and pre-made meals.
Ask for sauces and dressings on the side—and use them sparingly, if at all.
Limit Sodium Intake When Eating Out
- Order food that is fresh and broiled, baked or grilled. Choose foods that have the lease sodium and fat per serving. Choose mixed green salads or fruit as side dishes.
- Don’t Order food that is fried, frozen, or pre-made. Avoid dishes made with a lot of sauce. Stay away from dips, potato or nacho chips, salsas, pizza, French fries, potato or pasta salads, and soups.
- How to Order: Ask for dressings and sauces to be out on the side. Then, just use a little on your food or don’t use them at all. Tell your server that you don’t want cheese, MSG, salt, seasonings, or butter added to your food.
Learn to Read Nutrition Food Labels. Use the label information on food packages to help you make the best low-sodium selections. Some packaged foods contain more than one servings per container. For example, if the sodium content for one serving is 970 mg, but for the whole package, it is 1940 mg. If you ate all of it, you would almost reach your whole day’s sodium limit of 2000 mg. You should not eat this food since it is too salty! In general, you should focus on avoiding processed foods because they will be higher in sodium.
Limit saturated fats and oils– The best way to reduce cholesterol in your diet is to minimize saturated fat, which is found primarily in animal products, like meat and dairy products. This includes avoiding fatty meats such as beef, pastrami, ribs, steak, ground meat, hot dogs, sausage, bacon, and processed meats like bologna. Replace with skinless chicken or turkey, lean beef, and fish. Reducing unhealthy fats is a core part of an effective heart failure diet plan.
Avoid trans fats or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. These oils go through a process that makes them solid and are found in hard margarines, snack crackers, cookies, chips, and shortenings.
Avoid or limit dairy products that contain more than 1% milk fat. This includes cream, most cheeses, and nondairy coffee creamers. Try to switch to dairy-free products.
Avoid fast foods like hamburgers, fries, fried chicken, and tacos. They are high in both total fat and saturated fat.
Avoid or Limit Caffeine. Consume only a moderate amount of caffeine per day, no more than a cup or two of coffee.
Avoid Alcohol. Because alcohol can slow your heart rate and worsen your heart failure, your health care provider may tell you to avoid or limit alcoholic beverages. Alcohol may also interact with medications. If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation. This means no more than one to two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women, 2-3 times per week. Ask your health care provider for further specific guidelines regarding alcohol.
Include high-fiber foods such as vegetables, cooked legumes (beans), whole-grain foods (brown rice, brown rice pasta, whole wheat bread, steel-cut oats, oatmeal, quinoa), and fresh fruits. Foods high in fiber include antioxidants, which are critical to vascular health. The goal for everyone is to consume 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day.
Making these dietary changes is easier said than done. A high-fiber eating pattern supports digestion and vascular health and is an important component of a balanced heart failure diet plan.
Meet Dr. Cynthia Thaik, MD - Functional & Integrative Cardiologist
Dr. Cynthia Thaik is a board-certified cardiologist who integrates functional medicine into her concierge practice with a specialized focus on cardiovascular and neurovascular optimization.
She devotes one week per month exclusively to functional medicine consultations via telehealth, allowing for deep, unrushed care. During this time, Dr. Thaik works closely with patients seeking transformation, root-cause healing, and individualized strategies grounded in integrative science.
Her approach combines:
- Precision diagnostics
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- Extensive patient education
“Cardiovascular consultations and diagnostic services are covered by insurance. Functional medicine services are offered exclusively as concierge, self-pay services”
Schedule Your Telehealth Consultation with Dr. Cynthia
If you’re living with atrial fibrillation and want to explore natural treatment options, Dr. Cynthia is here to help. She provides telehealth consultations to guide you through personalized care plans, addressing lifestyle changes, supplement use, and stress management techniques tailored to your unique health needs.
Dr. Cynthia Thaik will perform a thorough cardiovascular assessment, looking at cardiac function, ruling out structural damage, checking paroxysmal atrial fibrillation symptoms, assessing the adverse effects of hypertension and dietary toxicity (alcohol, caffeine, excessive inflammatory foods), checking for vascular inflammation and endothelial dysfunction, and exploring the impact of stress on arterial tone and the autonomic nervous system regulation of the cardiovascular system.
The patient will have an option to receive individual coaching from a mindfulness instructor. Together, this integrative team approach to Afib will provide the patient with the best opportunity to address the root causes underlying the atrial fibrillation and hopefully restore normal sinus rhythm. As with all health conditions, our goal is to help Afib patients transition from symptoms and disease care to optimal health and wellness – true preventive cardiology.
If you have been diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation and are looking for natural treatments, Schedule a virtual visit or call for Telehealth Appointment at (818) 842 1410
Frequently Asked Questions
Regular palpitations can be a sign of atrial fibrillation. While this condition can continue for years without harm, a consistent increase in heart rate can cause heart enlargement. This is a hazard which can result in heart failure. Atrial fibrillation also comes with an increased risk of stroke from blood clots that can form as a result.
Without a solid understanding of the causes, it can be hard to definitively put a stop to heart palpitations. However, the treatments mentioned above: reducing stress and intake of stimulants, alcohol, and nicotine, exercising more, and eating a balanced diet, are all good steps forward. If your cardiologist determines that you have a more serious heart condition that may be life-threatening, it will require treatment. There are heart medications which can prevent more serious heart rhythm disorders. However, because of their significant side effects, they are not prescribed lightly. Consequences of misuse can lead to heart attacks, or even sudden death.
Some people experience heart palpitations after eating. While those palpitations may be attributable to an underlying medical condition, it is also possible that the food or beverage that was just consumed is responsible. Sugar can have this effect, particularly on hypoglycemic people. Alcohol is another common influence, particularly among those who have paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). Foods rich in tyramine or theobromine, such as cheese, red wine, bananas, and especially chocolate (which has both), can increase heart rate and may cause atrial fibrillation.
Actually, no. A more likely cause of heart palpitations is in fact low blood pressure. It is true that medication for high blood pressure can have a side effect of causing palpitations, which may be what is happening when someone with high blood pressure experiences palpitations.
