Planting the Seed for Blood Pressure Control: The Role of Plant-Based Nutrition in the Management of Hypertension.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Hypertension results in significant morbidity, mortality, and healthcare expenditures. Fortunately, it is largely preventable and treatable by implementing dietary interventions, though these remain underutilized. Here, we aim to explore the role of healthy dietary patterns in hypertension management and describe approaches for busy clinicians to address nutrition effectively and efficiently with patients. RECENT FINDINGS: DASH, Mediterranean, vegetarian, and vegan diets that include minimally processed, plant-based foods as core elements have consistently shown positive effects on hypertension. Recommendations that distill the most healthful components of these diets can significantly impact patient outcomes. Clinicians can harness evidence-based dietary assessment and counseling tools to implement and support behavioral changes, even during brief office visits. Healthful plant-based dietary patterns can often effectively prevent and treat hypertension. Clinicians may help improve patient outcomes by discussing evidence-based nutrition with their patients. Future work to promote infrastructural change that supports incorporating evidence-based nutrition into medical education, clinical care, and society at large can support these efforts.

Proposal and Rationale for a Cardioethics Curriculum.

The modern practice of cardiovascular medicine involves many ethical controversies in the care of our complex patients. Accordingly, we propose a framework for a practical, clinically based "cardioethics" curriculum that might be incorporated into fellowship training to prepare cardiologists to cope with increasingly complex ethical dilemmas. This work can also be adopted into continuing medical education for cardiologists and other cardiovascular practitioners given the critical importance of collaborative care in cardiology. We discuss heart transplant allocation, futility concerns, withdrawing care, advance care planning, conflicts of interests, and distributive justice. Sound ethical decision-making in cardiology requires a combination of extensive technical knowledge, nuanced appreciation of individual patient goals and values, and thoughtful application of ethical principles and reasoning. Cardiologists have an exceptionally broad toolkit of medications and interventions to address high-stakes disease states. We should maintain a similarly broad ethical toolkit to provide the best care for our patients.