San Diego, CA – Physicians who have more healthy habits are more likely than doctors without such habits to recommend five important lifestyle modifications to patients, including eating healthy, limiting sodium, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol and being more physically active, in a study presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism 2012 Scientific Sessions.
In a survey of 1,000 physicians about their lifestyles and whether they recommend national guideline lifestyle modifications to patients with high blood pressure, researchers found:
- Four percent smoked at least once a week.
- Almost 39 percent ate the recommended five or more cups of fruits and vegetables a week.
- About 27 percent exercised five or more days a week.
- About 66 percent made all five lifestyle recommendations to patients.
Doctors who exercised at least once a week or didn’t smoke were about twice as likely to recommend the five interventions.
The study’s lead author is Olivia Y. Hung, M.D., Ph.D., Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Co-authors are Nora L. Keenan, Ph.D. and Jing Fang, M.D. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.
