|
 Researchers surveyed more than 41,000 people with no history of
heart disease and found that those who started hypertension and
cholesterol medications were more likely than those who didn't to
cut back on exercise and put on extra weight.
They were also more likely to quit smoking, but that didn't entirely
explain the amount of weight gained in this group, the researchers
report in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
"Unfavorable changes in lifestyle may reduce beneficial effects of
medication use," coauthor Maarit Korhonen of the University of Turku
said by email.
In the early 2000s, U.S. surveys found that people using
cholesterol-lowering statin therapy had lower calorie and fat intake
than non-users, but more recent studies have suggested the opposite
is now true, Korhonen and colleagues note in their report.
That may be because guidelines have expanded the use of statins and
blood pressure medications to people at lower risk for heart
disease, said Dr. Mary Ann Bauman, a member of the American Heart
Association's national board of directors, who wasn't involved in
the study.
As prescribing of medication to stave off heart disease expands,
Korhonen's team wanted to learn whether patients are more likely to
complement their medications with healthy lifestyle changes or more
inclined to replace lifestyle efforts with the medicines.
The survey participants were all public sector workers, all over age
40 and mostly women. Each answered a questionnaire at least twice in
four-year intervals between 2000 and 2013.
Compared to people who didn't start medication during this period,
those who did were 82% more likely to become obese and 8% more
likely to become physically inactive.
[to top of second column] |
"People often think that taking a medication will suffice for controlling for a
disease and get a false sense of security that they don't need to make lifestyle
changes and that the pill will take care of the problem," Bauman said in a phone
interview.
It is often easier to take a pill than to make lifestyle changes such as
engaging in exercise, eating healthy and maintaining a healthy weight, she
added.
The dangers of cigarette smoking are well known and that could be what prompted
people to give up the habit, Bauman noted. Intensive public health actions in
Finland during the study period, such as prohibition of smoking in workplaces
and restaurants, may have also contributed to the high quit rate, the study
authors point out.
To get patients to adopt or keep up healthy lifestyle habits, clinicians could
try finding out the patient's reasons for changing their lifestyle and engage in
discussions to incorporate those motives and preferences into a regimen they
could stick with, Korhonen said.
"Rather than telling someone to just cut out sugar in your diet because of the
calories, we might tell them cut to out one soda a day for a month, then maybe
try two. Give them goals that can be realized," Bauman added.
"If we are going to prevent these diseases, we have to be able to motivate
people to want to make the changes to have a healthy lifestyle. We also have to
make it easier systemically through policy, as we are doing here with smoking,"
Bauman said.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2SUVWE4 Journal of the American Heart Association, online
February 5, 2020.
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
