WHAT YOUR CARDIOLOGIST ISN’T TELLING YOU WILL HURT YOU. Research has shown that lifestyle change has a very powerful effect on risk of first and subsequent heart attackes. Most times lifestyle is much more powerful (and safer) than medications. However, it seems our focus is not on the right things for those patients who have had a heart attack. Basically, most patients were somewhat compliant with their meds for the 30 day follow up, but fewer were compliant with the needed lifestyle change (diet, exercise, quitting smoking). However, for those who made the right choices, their risk of having another heart attack was cut in half. For those not smart enough to get it (kept smoking, no diet chanes and no exercise), they had 3.8 times the risk of another heart attack.
Bottom line is that lifestyle changes are more powerful at protecting our heart, but patients don’t seem to follow recommendations. There are two reasons this might be happening. First, patients are too dumb and stupid to understand they are more likely to die if they don’t make the right choices. OR, the cardiologists are not adequately expressing just how powerful lifestyle changes are… So, if you’ve had a heart attack already and haven’t made the needed changes, which scenario fits you?