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We are able to offer advice about the various
risk factors for heart disease. These include:
Smoking
Stopping smoking is the single biggest
change that you could make to reduce your risk of stroke
or heart disease. Even late into middle age, stopping
smoking can have a dramatic effect and can reduce your
risk to baseline levels within the space of 5 years.
We are now able to offer nicotine replacement
and other medications to aid the process on NHS prescription.
Alternatively you could contact the local NHS quit line:
020 8321 2321
High blood pressure
What is high blood pressure? Information
from the British Heart Foundation.
We aim to follow the British
Hypertension Society guidelines when treating high
blood pressure. These are guidelines recommended by a
national body of experts and include advice about when
to start treatment and what blood pressure we should be
aiming for in treatment. Briefly summarised, the target
for blood pressure is 140/85 if you don't suffer from
diabetes and 130/80 if you do.
Sometimes achieving the ideal blood pressure
requires a good deal of effort and may mean that you end
up taking several different blood pressure medications.
This is not uncommon, but it is important that we know if
you think you are getting any unwanted side-effects from
the medication.
High cholesterol
What is cholesterol? Information
from the British Heart Foundation.
Research over the last 8-9 years has shown
that using medicines to lower your cholesterol can prevent
heart attacks and strokes if you have already suffered from
either of these or are at high risk of having one in the
future. Your coronary risk is calculated on the basis
of age, sex, blood pressure, whether you smoke or have done
so in the last 5 years, whether you suffer from diabetes
and also the cholesterol or fasting lipid levels
in your blood.
Aspirin
We may also recommend that you take one
junior aspirin every day. However, like all medicines,
aspirin can have some undesirable side-effects, including
inflammation or ulceration of your stomach. It is important,
therefore, to weigh up the risks vs. the benefits of taking
this in the long term. If you think that you ought to
be taking an aspirin a day then please make an appointment
to discuss this.
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