The role of lifestyle intervention on blood pressure reduction: Its impact on coronary heart disease

Abstract

Epidemiological studies indicate that the risk of Coronery Heart Disease (CHD) increases continuously with increasing blood pressure. Several factors have been identified, not as independent cardiovascular risk factors, but as factors, which have been shown to increase blood pressure; such as excess weight, alcohol and sodium intake and smoking. A total of 100 patients aged less than 65 years were interrogated. Statistical analysis: Data was entered in SPSS software version 12 to get blood pressure recordings associated with the CHD patients at 95% confidence interval of the difference and paired t-test. All severely ill patients, patients aged more than 65 years were excluded. Lifestyle modification interventions included exercises, weight reduction decreased, alcohol consumption, and dietary modification. Smoking cessation, stress management were assessed; intake of antioxidants and fish oil supplements, was also noted. Patients in lifestyle intervention group significatly reduced the intake of saturated fat, sugar and cholesterol (p < 0.001), increased their exercises (p < 0.01) and stopped smoking (p < 0.05) when compared with the usual care group. This study demonstrated that modification of lifestyle in CHD patients can reduce risk factors of CHD and blood pressure, and prevent second heart attack.