Mediterranean diet and heart rate: the PREDIMED randomised trial

A higher heart rate (HR) has been associated with increased total and cardiovascular mortality [1] and [2]. Clinical trials support the beneficial effect of decreasing HR in patients with heart failure [3] and ischaemic heart disease [4]. A recent cross-sectional study showed that closer adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MeDiet) was related to lower HR [5]. We evaluated the association between adherence to the MeDiet (measured with a score from 0 to 14 obtained by a validated screener [6]) and HR using both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal analysis of the PREDIMED trial [7] and [8].