"Our trial thus does not provide evidence for effects of single nutritional components," the authors explain, "but rather suggests that the overall strategy of providing nutritional support to reach different nutritional goals during a hospital stay for an acute illness is beneficial for patients with chronic heart failure." .

They received standard hospital food during their stay "according to their ability and desire to eat, with no nutritional consultation and no recommendation for additional nutritional support".

After 180 days, roughly a quarter of the patients who received nutritional counseling and support in hospital had died, which goes to show how serious chronic heart failure is.

It's unclear how these patients kept eating once they left the hospital, but given all the patients had an average length of stay of about 10 days, the results seem to suggest that many in the nutritional support group took at least some of the advice on board