Project 458261

Nutrition plays an important role in preventing heart disease and stroke, but current diet advice is not being used well to lower the number of heart attacks or strokes. Delivery of diet advice can be difficult and time-consuming both for doctors and dietitians. We can use new technology, such as digital applications (apps) to help with the long-term delivery of diet advice. To translate the clinical guidelines for diet advice for those with high cholesterol, I developed an innovative app for patients, the PortfolioDiet.app. The PortfolioDiet.app is currently being used as an additional therapy to the standard of care for prevention of heart disease at St. Michael's Hospital. The goal of this proposed project is to test the ability of the PortfolioDiet.app to deliver diet advice and provide constant feedback on how well people are following the Portfolio Diet (plant-based diet rich in cholesterol-lowering foods). (1) Develop and validate a food-based portfolio diet score to allow app users to track their diet adherence to the Portfolio Diet. (2) Undertake a Quality Improvement initiative to ensure the PortfolioDiet.app meets the needs of its target users. (3) Test the app in a research setting in a small group of participants to see if the Portfolio Diet App can help lower LDL-cholesterol (bad cholesterol). (4) Test the PortfolioDiet.app in a primary-care setting through a primary care network (UTOPIAN) in 960 high-risk patients over 1 year. My project is unique in that it is the first use of a digital tool to help deliver the Portfolio Diet to patients. The PortfolioDiet.app will be a valuable tool for doctors and dietitians to use in helping their patients follow the Portfolio Diet.