Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death globally and here in the United States. Diet has a major impact on the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and subsequent cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. An unhealthy diet is the most significant potential behavioral and modifiable risk factor for ischemic heart disease. Despite these established facts, dietary interventions are far less frequent than pharmaceutical and procedural interventions in the management of cardiovascular disease. The beneficial effects of a plant-based diet on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality have been demonstrated in a number of recent clinical studies. The significant findings of each study are discussed in this review article, highlighting the role of a healthy plant-based diet in improving cardiovascular outcomes. From a clinician’s standpoint, the knowledge and understanding of the facts and data points from these recent clinical studies would ensure more effective patient counseling on the substantial benefits of dietary interventions.

Cardiovascular complications from COVID-19 include myocarditis, acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and others. Population-level data is lacking about the relationship between COVID-19 and cardiovascular complications; therefore, we conducted a study to examine the incidence of myocarditis, acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure (HF) after COVID-19 infection. Retrospective cohort study using de-identified data from 50 health systems across the United States. Cohort groups were created using patients ≥18 who were admitted to hospitals for respiratory illness with COVID-19 in 2020 and respiratory illness without COVID-19 for 2020 and 2019. There were 107,699 patients with COVID-19, 77,499 patients with respiratory illness in 2020, and 112,898 patients in 2019. The COVID-19 group was matched to each respiratory illness group by propensity score. Patients with prior specific cardiovascular events such as myocarditis, AMI, HF were excluded. The primary outcome was myocarditis, and secondary outcomes were AMI and HF. In the COVID-19 group, 79 (0.12%) patients had new-onset myocarditis compared to 29 (0.04%) patients in the non-COVID-19 control (Pneumonia/flu) group Odd's Ratio (OR), (OR 2.73, CI 95%, 1.78-4.18). In the COVID-19 group, 1512 patients developed HF compared to 2,659 patients in the non-COVID-19 group (OR 0.49, CI 95%, 0.46-0.52). 1125 patients in COVID-19 group had AMI compared to 1243 patients in non-COVID-19 group (OR 0.87, CI 95%, 0.80-0.94). COVID-19 was associated with a 2-3-fold higher risk of myocarditis. Unexpectedly, lower rates of HF diagnosis reflect challenges faced due to the severity of lung disease leading to obscuring physical exam findings required for HF diagnosis and early mortality before a diagnosis of HF was made.