The vast majority of studies on diet quality and coronary heart disease (CHD) have focused largely on determining dietary risk factors for CHD. However, few studies have looked at the quality of the diet of individuals who have established CHD and whether a healthy diet has been achieved as part of the secondary prevention efforts. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to determine the diet quality of 555 patients 1 year after being diagnosed with CHD by coronary angiography (defined as the presence of at least one coronary lesion of >50% at coronary angiography). The study’s major finding was that patients with a recent CHD event ate a poor quality diet. The mean Alternate Healthy Eating Index score, which was the tool designed to evaluate the dietary quality of the 24-hour diet recall in the study population, was lower than scores reported for samples of healthy individuals. Lower dietary quality was also associated with lower total caloric intake as well as smoking, obesity, and lower educational level. Results of this study suggest that health care professionals should refer CHD patients to behavioural interventions that include both diet and physical activity for secondary prevention of CHD. The authors also suggested that dietary changes should be emphasized to CHD patients who are less educated, smokers, or obese, i.e. those at highest risk of having a poor quality diet.
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