Dr. Anila Chadha, Dignity Health
As a family physician and obesity medicine physician, Dr. Anila Chadha helps patients achieve medical weight loss so that they can decrease the burden of metabolic and cardiovascular health problems.
“I’m extremely passionate about women’s metabolic health,” she said.
“My goal is to empower them with the knowledge about their risk factors and prevention.”
In the 15 years of her practice, Chadha said her female patients often don’t prioritize their own health.
“I do have many patients who are moms, having full-time jobs, and also going to school,” she said. “(They) do not consider cardiovascular diseases as a major risk factor for them. Women are not aware of the fact that cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in women.”
Many of her patients have good intentions to start exercising or eat healthier once one of their many responsibilities lessen. But most of the time, their responsibilities don’t decrease, and her patients don’t make the changes they need to for their own health.
“My aim is to educate women that cardiovascular disease is their biggest battle,” Chadha said. “The biggest barrier for patients to live a healthy lifestyle is not being aware of what exactly they have to do so they can really decrease the risk factors.”
However, the responsibility shouldn’t just lie with patients to make changes. Health care providers can better explain how to improve lifestyle behaviors.
“We have to educate our patients in a very specific manner. Instead of saying ‘eat less and move more,’ we have to specify things like ‘eat five vegetables and fruits every day,’ ‘walk 10,000 steps every day’ and give them specific goals and spread awareness with these tips,” she said.
And health care providers can ensure
patients clearly understand the risk factors — like the fact that obesity is one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
“The most common misconception that I hear from my patients about their heart health is that they don’t know if smoking, high blood pressure and excess weight contribute to increased risk of heart disease,” Chadha said. “My patients often say, ‘I do not have chest pain, so I don’t think I have heart disease’ or ‘My EKG two years ago was normal, so I don’t think I have heart disease.’”
Her patients’ progress — and the hope of improving or even potentially reversing high blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol through lifestyle changes, keeps Chadha going.
She said: “The fact we can prevent the majority of the heart disease by following a healthy lifestyle, by knowing our numbers and by getting regular checkups, treatment and management in a timely manner, motivates me strongly to spread awareness about the prevention of heart disease.”