A new study from Duke University found that spirituality can also have a positive impact on the quality of life of heart failure patients.
It further concludes spirituality should be considered a potential target for palliative care interventions to improve patient-centered and clinical outcomes in these individuals.
The study was published in JACC Heart Failure and was conducted by Rachel S. Tobin et al.
Numerous studies have shown that spirituality can help improve the quality of life for people with chronic diseases like cancer.
Spirituality is a core domain of palliative care, with the goal of identifying and addressing spiritual concerns and providing patients with appropriate spiritual and religious resources.
People who have heart failure experience a poorer quality of life compared to their peers, with high levels of depression, anxiety and spiritual distress.
In the study, researchers conducted a review of 47 articles in order to explore the current knowledge of spirituality in heart failure patients; describe associations between spirituality and quality of life, as well as patient outcomes; and propose clinical applications and future directions for spirituality in this population.
There were approximately 10 varying instruments used to measure spirituality, some simple, others complex.
They found spiritual well-being improved in heart failure patients in a palliative care intervention.
Patients had an increased quality of life. They were also found to have lower levels of anxiety and depression.
The finding suggests not only can spirituality improve the quality of life for the patient, but it can also help support caregivers and potentially help heart failure patients from needing to be readmitted to the hospital.
Researchers are now doing is developing a spirituality screening tool, similar to ones used to screen for depression.
This can be used to identify heart failure patients in palliative care who are at risk for spiritual distress.
Previous research found that some drugs can help treat heart failure.
In a recent study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, researchers found that people with both diabetes and heart failure who were treated with sotagliflozin, a novel drug for diabetes, experienced reductions of 22% to 43% in the risk of death or worsening heart failure.
The drug was effective in patients with all forms of heart failure, including those whose heart muscle is abnormally stiff (preserved ejection fraction) and for whom there is currently no effective treatment.
The team says the drug can strongly reduce heart failure, including heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), for which no effective treatment is currently available.
Ejection fraction is a measure of how much blood the heart pumps out each time it contracts. With a normal ejection fraction, 50% to 70% of the blood in the heart is pumped out with each heartbeat.
In heart failure with reduced ejection fraction—a better known, more treatable form of the disease—weakness of the heart muscle means that only 40% or less of the blood in the heart is pumped out with each heartbeat.
By contrast, an HFpEF patient’s ejection fraction is normal or near-normal, but the heart must work harder to adequately fill with the blood given abnormal stiffness of the heart muscle.
HFpEF occurs in both men and women but is a particularly common problem among older women.
Sotagliflozin belongs to a class of drugs known as SGLT1/2 inhibitors and is the first drug in this class shown to help control blood sugar levels in two ways: by modulating the rise in blood sugar levels after meals and by helping the body to eliminate more sugar in the urine.
For this analysis, the team combined patient data from two large studies. In one study, 10,584 patients were randomly assigned to treatment with either sotagliflozin or a placebo.
After a follow-up period of 16 months, treatment with sotagliflozin reduced heart disease by 26% compared with placebo.
In the other study, 1,222 patients were assigned to treatment with either sotagliflozin or a placebo.
After nine months of follow-up, treatment with sotagliflozin reduced cardiovascular deaths and hospitalizations or urgent visits for heart failure by 33% compared with placebo.
The team says sotagliflozin offers a meaningful, incremental advance in improving outcomes for heart failure patients.
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