Are Lifestyle Changes Effective for People at Heart Disease Risk?

Only half of the people newly diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or obesity in England receive lifestyle support from their general physicians, shows a new 10-year analysis study.

High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity are risk factors for heart disease, which in England causes 150,000, or 30%, of all deaths annually. General physicians can play a particularly important role in recommending and monitoring lifestyle-related changes for the reduction of cardiovascular disease risk.

‘New analysis shows that poor recording in electronic health records may miss lifestyle interventions for people at heart disease risk.’

There is strong evidence showing that lifestyle-related interventions, such as support with stopping smoking, exercising, and losing weight, can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

A team of researchers carried out the analysis of 770,000 patients between 2010 and 2019 showed that lifestyle interventions were recorded for 55.6% of people newly diagnosed with high blood pressure, 52.6% of people newly diagnosed with obesity, and 45.2% of people newly diagnosed with high cholesterol.

The analysis also showed a substantial proportion of individuals not having any recorded lifestyle support or medication within 12 months of diagnosis, ranging from 12% of people with an initial diagnosis of high blood pressure to 44% of people with an initial diagnosis of obesity.

The analysis was published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

These results have important implications for policy and practice to ensure that individuals with modifiable risk factors linked to heart disease can benefit from interventions that can help to improve their health, prevent disease and, most importantly, put their health back in their hands.

Given the large burden of cardiovascular disease on primary healthcare services and lack of long-term follow-up on the effectiveness and equity of access to lifestyle interventions for conditions, predisposing patients to cardiovascular disease, the use of electronic health records will be indispensable to better understand their use and impact.

Source: Medindia