Nutritional Approaches to Cardiovascular Health
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Bioactives and Nutraceuticals".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 6
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) develops through complex and interconnected processes, including dyslipidemia, elevated blood pressure, insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, chronic low-grade inflammation, oxidative stress, and adverse vascular remodeling. Nutrition is uniquely positioned to influence these pathways simultaneously, making it one of the most powerful and scalable tools for cardiovascular prevention and risk reduction. While pharmacologic therapies remain essential for many patients, dietary strategies can modify upstream drivers of disease and complement medical treatment by improving intermediate markers such as blood pressure, lipid profiles, inflammatory status, and glycemic control.
A growing body of evidence supports the cardiovascular benefits of dietary patterns emphasizing minimally processed plant foods, healthy fats, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and dietary fiber, alongside reduced intake of excess sodium, added sugars, and highly processed products. At the same time, the field is moving beyond single-nutrient paradigms toward more integrated perspectives that account for food matrices, dietary behavior, and real-world adherence. Methodological developments—such as improved dietary assessment methods, metabolomics-based nutritional biomarkers, and advanced causal inference in nutritional epidemiology—are enabling more precise evaluation of diet–disease relationships.
Importantly, nutritional effects are not uniform across individuals. Variability in genetic background, metabolic phenotype, gut microbiome composition, medication use, and lifestyle context can alter responses to diet, creating both scientific challenges and opportunities. Precision nutrition and mechanistic studies exploring nutrient signaling, microbiota-derived metabolites, immune pathways, and endothelial biology are helping to clarify why some individuals benefit more than others and how dietary interventions can be targeted more effectively.
This Special Issue provides a focused platform for rigorous and innovative research examining how nutritional exposures—from overall dietary patterns to specific nutrients and bioactive compounds—shape cardiovascular health across the lifespan. By integrating mechanistic insights with clinical and population-level evidence, contributions to this issue can support evidence-based recommendations, improve prevention strategies, and inform practical interventions capable of reducing the global burden of cardiovascular disease.
This Special Issue aims to advance scientific understanding of how nutrition and dietary patterns can prevent, manage, and modify cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk across diverse populations. It will include high-quality research that investigates mechanisms, evaluates interventions, and supports translation into clinical and public health practice.
Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with nutrition representing one of the most modifiable determinants of cardiometabolic risk. However, this is a fast-evolving field, with improved dietary assessment, biomarker discovery, precision nutrition concepts, growing recognition of the gut–heart axis, inflammation, and metabolic dysregulation as key drivers of disease progression. This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, narrative reviews, and short communications that address the role of diet, foods, nutrients, and bioactive compounds in cardiovascular health and disease.
Submissions may focus on (but are not limited to) the following:
- Dietary patterns (e.g., Mediterranean, DASH, low-salt diets, plant-forward diets), dietary quality indices, and long-term adherence;
- Specific nutrients and bioactive compounds (e.g., fatty acids, sodium/potassium, polyphenols, fiber, phytosterols) and their mechanistic roles;
- Nutrition and cardiometabolic comorbidities including obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome;
- Interactions among diet, inflammation, oxidative stress, endothelial function, thrombosis, and vascular remodeling;
- Gut microbiota, microbial metabolites, and diet–microbiome–cardiovascular pathways;
- Nutritional interventions and clinical trials targeting intermediate outcomes (e.g., blood pressure, lipid profiles, glycemic control, arterial stiffness) and clinical endpoints;
- Precision nutrition, nutrigenomics, and individual variability in dietary response;
- Functional foods, supplementation strategies, and evidence-based evaluation of health claims;
- Food processing, dietary additives, ultra-processed foods, and cardiovascular risk;
- Implementation of research, behavioral strategies, and policy-relevant approaches for dietary change.
Interdisciplinary contributions bridging nutrition science, cardiology, epidemiology, molecular biology, public health, and digital health are particularly encouraged.
Dr. Aleksandar Kibel
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- cardiovascular disease
- dietary patterns
- hypertension
- dyslipidemia
- inflammation
- endothelial function
- omega-3 fatty acids
- dietary fiber
- gut microbiome
- precision nutrition
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