Making Best Practice, Every Day Practice
Recognition of the diverse areas of the brain and multiple neurochemicals and hormones involved in regulation of appetite, satiety and metabolism helps to explain why obesity treatment needs to be individualised and is more complicated that merely instructing people who are living with obesity to eat less and move more. On the contrary, it requires […]
The role of nutrition and exercise in maintaining muscle mass, strength and function pre and post falls and fractures. With an ageing population, strategies that help older adults to maintain their independence for longer are increasingly important.
If physical activity were a pill we would prescribe it because of its wide-reaching positive impacts on major long-term conditions. The aim of this article is to outline the growing evidence base supporting the benefits of physical activity and to identify the harms from inactivity. However, only a minority of healthcare professionals seem to be familiar with the current Chief Medical Office (CMO) physical activity guidance.
Obesity is estimated to be responsible for more than 30,000 deaths each year, reducing lifespan by an average of nine years. The links between obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease are well documented, but overweight and obesity also causes 6% of cancers in the UK. These figures have resulted in warnings that obesity is the new smoking when it comes to risks to health and longevity. So the problem is clear. The challenge is to put into action what works.
This article reviews the important and growing role of the NHS Health Check in tackling some of the challenges in prevention and treatment of CVD and other non-communicable diseases.
This month’s Back to Basics feature is a useful wallchart showing estimates of alcohol content and calorie counts of typical alcoholic drinks. Many people forget the considerable calorific content of drinks and are unaware of how much pure alcohol they are consuming. Having these facts to hand are useful for the patients we see in practice and for our own healthy living!
Cardiovascular disease is a much more preventable issue than many healthcare professionals realise. Medical advances, together with reduced premature mortality from CVD and increased life expectancy, means that on top of the demands of an ageing population we are also living ‘less-well’ for longer, and creating a different kind of pressure on services.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in Ireland and diminishes quality of life and places a burden on health care services. There is little known about CVD with regard to nurses’ health in Ireland. The overall aim of this study was to assess the lifestyle of cardiac nurses working in an acute setting for the first time in Ireland. These findings may have implications for primary care nurses.
This useful wall chart shows how just 5-10% weight loss improves important markers of cardiovascular health, including lipids, blood pressure, diabetes risk and inflammation.
Approaches to the prevention of cardiovascular disease should be tailored to each individual. But almost everyone will benefit from lifestyle interventions that have been shown to reduce cardiovascular risk.
In 2014, the Five-Year Forward View articulated clearly that, if the NHS is to be sustainable, it needs to get serious about prevention. The initial focus was on diabetes prevention; now the national prevention focus has switched to prevention of cardiovascular disease.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a significant cause of disability and death in the UK, and it is one of the conditions most strongly associated with health inequalities. We can help reduce the CVD burden by reminding our patients of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.
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