Cardiac, stroke patients stuck in their ways

Healthy habits hard to adopt, Mac doctor finds

Many patients suffering from coronary heart disease or stroke are unlikely to adopt healthier lifestyles, according to the findings of a massive new study led by a McMaster University researcher.

In f act, the study found as few as 4 per cent of patients who suffered a cardiac event or stroke improved their diets, undertook regular physical activity and avoided smoking.

“This isn’t something that’s necessarily new, but it is something that needs to continue to be brought to the attention of the public,” said Matt Mayer, a senior research specialist for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

“We know when individuals actually go and do these cardiac rehab programs and when they adopt healthy lifestyles and behaviours, they’re going to have a significant improvement in their risk of having a secondary event or dying.”

Led by McMaster cardiologist Dr. Koon Teo, the study examined the prevalence of three healthy behaviours — avoiding or quitting smoking, consuming a healthy diet and undertaking regular physical activity — in more than 7,500 adults who reported having coronary heart disease or stroke over the course of seven years.

It found more than 18 per cent of participants continued to smoke after their cardiac event or stroke.

Around 35 per cent engaged in high levels of physical activity, while 39 per cent adopted better eating habits.

More than 14 per cent of patients f ailed to undertake any of the healthy behaviours, while just 4 per cent adopted all three.

The findings, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, are part of the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology Study, or PURE, which involves close to 154,000 patients and dozens of researchers in 17 countries of varying income levels worldwide.

While the study found the prevalence of healthy lifestyle behaviours to be low in general, it was even lower among patients from poorer countries.

That being said, it also determined that individuals from both high-income and low-income countries were less likely to adopt healthier diets than their middleincome counterparts.

Those from lower-income countries, meanwhile, were more likely to continue smoking after a cardiac event or stroke.

“We found that by and large, people from high-income countries such as Canada, they tend to quit smoking, they tend to do more physical exercise, in terms of recreation, but the eating habits are not so good,” Teo said.

“We think it’s because in rich countries we have too much of a choice, and we can afford to eat them.

“That’s something we need to work on.”

The size and scope of the study allowed researchers to compare outcomes across borders — something Teo noted has not been done previously, at least to this extent.

“We were able to make comparisons between different countries and try to understand why it is, for example, Canadians behave one way and people from China behave another way,” he said.

The study was funded through several domestic and international sources, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario and grants from pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline.