The average Pole has a heart eight or nine years older than his birth certificate, and our life expectancy is four years lower than the European average. He suffers from high blood pressure, is obese and has elevated cholesterol. "The problem is that few of us are aware of the state of our he alth" - an interview with prof. Adam Torbicki, vice-president of the European Society of Cardiology.

Important

Laughter heals the heart

In August this year, the congress of the European Society of Cardiology took place in Paris. It cites the results of studies that indicate that work overload, stress and anger are cardiotoxic, while laughing and eating chocolate have a positive effect on the cardiovascular system.

According to the latest NATPOL 2011 report (), every third Pole hashypertension , 6.5 million are obese, 18 million have elevatedcholesterol , including 20 percent they are young people aged 18 to 34. This is the second study after almost 10 years, assessing the incidence of classic and new risk factorsheart disease , lifestyle and the state of knowledge of Poles on the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

  • In the professor's opinion, are we even slightly better than the analyzes from 10 years ago?

Prof. Adam Torbicki: First of all, mortality caused by cardiovascular diseases has decreased. This seems to be due to a similar degree to treatment successes and to a he althier diet, a reduction in the number of smokers, especially among men, and a more effective treatment of hypertension. Unfortunately, still many people do not even know that they have elevated lipid levels or hypertension, and more and more Poles are obese, and thus at risk of diabetes.

  • But these are not our only sins …

A. Th .: Many patients with arterial hypertension do not follow medical recommendations, there is no common practice of examining the lipid profile, still 27% smoke. Poles. Another sin we commit is the lack of daily, at least half an hour of physical activity. My friend, professor Piotrowicz from the Institute of Cardiology in Anin, urges you to take a "exercise tablet", which could sometimes replace those loweringcholesterol or blood pressure. The Polish Forum for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases was established, including members of seven medical societies. The goal of this forum is to create a canon for the prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Homemade ways to lower the pressure

  • Did you manage to do it?
A. T .: Forum is a great idea for the integration of scientific societies promoting the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. Indeed, it issues documents that are a kind of guidelines for dealing with various risk factors. However, the fundamental problem, in addition to defining what needs to be done, is getting people to comply. That they would understand that sometimes a lot can be achieved with small modifications of life, and they would like to consistently introduce these changes.

  • I think GPs should play an important role here.

A. T .: Not only them. Each contact with a doctor should be related to preventive advice regarding the cardiovascular system

  • At the last congress of the European Society of Cardiology a lot was said about the influence of the psyche on the condition of the human circulatory system and about chocolate …

A.T .: Psychological factors are more and more often considered to play a significant role in causing heart disease. But the role of chocolate was perhaps the hit of congress. We underestimate it, and it may become a competition for many years of a preventive combined tablet, the so-called polypill. Polypill contains the most important ingredients to prevent cardiovascular disease - a small amount of aspirin to protect against blood clots, statins to lower cholesterol, a diuretic to normalize blood pressure, and an agent that widens and protects blood vessels. Unfortunately, it can have side effects, especially in the gastrointestinal tract. It has turned out that the effects similar to those expected from polypill in relation to the risk of cardiovascular disease can be achieved by eating… chocolate. Research has shown that "love" chocolate reduces by 30 percent. the risk of developing the most serious cardiovascular diseases, such as a heart attack or stroke. Chocolate has antioxidant, blood pressure lowering, anti-inflammatory, anti-atherosclerotic and vasodilating properties. However, in the use of this unusual drug you need to be careful, because high-calorie chocolate is available on the market and eating it in large amounts may have the opposite effect, namely lead to obesity, and thusgoes - high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol and diabetes. Perhaps scientists will come up with he althy and tasty forms of chocolate that can be eaten without restrictions. For now, it's he althy to eat 4 cubes of dark chocolate a day.

  • During the congress, the latest research results were presented, which confirm that a proper diet protects against atherosclerosis and heart attacks.
A. T .: Indeed, we are convinced that certain dietary modifications, especially those that protect against obesity and diabetes, are very important for prophylaxis. So it is beneficial to eat vegetables, especially green ones, as well as fruit, sea fish. The Mediterranean diet is good, and if you like to drink a glass of wine with your meal, you don't have to discourage it. It is also known that pharmacological supplementation does not work well. So do not go crazy with pills that would "heal" the diet. It must be remembered that although an appropriate diet is an important element of the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, it is not the only one.
  • The European Society of Cardiology has created a data registry on how women with heart disease get pregnant and new guidelines for the treatment of cardiovascular disease in these women. From your point of view, is the problem really big?
A. T .: The relationship between pregnancy and heart disease is always a problem, because we fight for the he alth and life of more than one person. Certain medical conditions may develop during pregnancy, such as heart failure, pulmonary embolism, or aortic dissection. Their diagnosis is usually more difficult because there are concerns about irradiation of the fetus with ionizing radiation used in radiology, which are not well-founded. Other conditions require modification of the management, such as anticoagulant therapy in women with previously implanted heart valves. There are also particularly difficult situations, such as when a woman with pulmonary hypertension, despite our warnings, becomes pregnant and decides to keep it despite the 30-50% risk of death. We treat these women by all means to reduce the risk. The therapy is always hampered by the lack of studies on the effects of drugs in pregnancy, because pregnant women are excluded from drug tests. In addition, the effects of the same drugs can be completely different in the course of pregnancy in animals and humans. So little is known about what is harmful and what can be safely administered. That is why the registers from which we find out what the final effects of the therapy applied to saving the pregnant woman and the fetus have, are so important. Registers are often our only source of knowledge about the effectiveness andsafety of drugs used in pregnancy.

() The NATPOL 2011 report was prepared by the team of the Department of Hypertension and Diabetology of the University Clinical Center in Gdańsk under the supervision of prof. dr. hab. med. Bogdan Wyrzykowski, and the project coordinator was dr hab. Tomasz Zdrojewski, med

Category:

Cardiology