New Heart Strategy Focuses on Lifestyles
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Sep 3, 11:16 PM (ET)
By MARIA CHENG
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - Two years ago, Trini Perez almost never ate fish. Now, it's a regular part of her diet, if grudgingly. After her husband Ricardo suffered heart problems last year, the couple from the Spanish city of Valencia took part in Euroaction, a project in preventive cardiology designed to reduce heart problems by improving lifestyles.
The couple, both 63, are now in better health than they were before. According to Euroaction researchers, who presented their findings at the World Cardiology Congress in Barcelona Sunday, they are evidence of the impact lifestyle changes alone can have on preventing cardiovascular problems.
Euroaction's community-based strategy for avoiding heart disease is based on the premise that lifestyle, in most cases, is more important than genetics in determining susceptibility to heart disease. Euroaction focused on improving the behavioral choices of 10,972 patients and their partners and families.
"This is the first step in achieving preventive cardiological care," said Dr. David Wood, the study's chairman and principal investigator. The study was conducted in eight European countries, and researchers say that their protocol will be offered to national authorities and heart foundations as a real-life model for preventing cardiovascular disease.
"Intervention should always go hand in hand with prevention," added Dr. William Wijns, co-director of the Cardiovascular Center, Aalst, Belgium.
The study aimed to change behavior in various categories, including smoking, physical activity, blood pressure and nutrition. Over 16 weeks, patients and their partners attended weekly educational sessions, receiving personalized guidance on changing their lifestyle.
In the nutrition component, more than 75 percent of patients and their partners ate the recommended fruits and vegetables compared with just over a third of heart patients outside the study. Physical activity targets were met by twice as many patients and their partners in the study as their peers in regular care.
In all categories, the lifestyle changes were more marked in the patients themselves than in their partners. For example, while nearly 60 percent of patients stopped smoking in the Euroaction program, only 23 percent of their partners did.
The program differs from many others because it is headed by nurses, directing teams of dietitians, physical activity experts and physiotherapists.
"Doctors don't tend to be as involved in prevention, so it's key to have nurses involved," said Prof. Gabriel Steg, a cardiologist at Hospital Bichat in Paris, who was unconnected to the study.
Yet while the study design is certainly comprehensive, its applications may be more limited, particularly in countries where health capacities are already stretched, Steg said.
Because the program does not depend on medicines or high-tech equipment, it might be applicable for poorer regions like Africa or Asia, researchers said.
In Africa, for instance, where there is a long tradition of using social networks to dispense public health messages, it is possible that a program like Euroaction that relies on human rather than technical resources, might be feasible.
"The next step would be rolling out this strategy to see if it can be implemented in less affluent environments," said Steg.
In the case of Trini Perez, who was not at risk of heart disease, the surprise of her husband's heart problems was enough to stimulate a change in her own lifestyle. "I wanted to support him and this was the best way," she said. Still, she and her husband are still attempting to convince their children, both smokers in their 30s, to quit.
Perez said that while adapting to the lifestyle changes took some time, she is now used to the new regimen. When she goes to the market these days, she routinely buys fish, instead of the red meat they used to favor.
"I still don't like fish that much, but grilled salmon is OK," she said.
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