Lifestyle modification for patients with angina

Dr. Najat, say you've been diagnosed with having coronary artery disease and you have so-called stable angina, so you get chest pain every now and again. You've been to see you in clinic. Yeah. What are the things that I can do or one could do for oneself outside of the hospital? Yeah, it's a really important question and it's really important for patients to feel empowered and to understand what they can and can't do. First thing would be to clarify with your consultants. If you were to see me, I would explain what the severity of the coronary artery disease is and what the limitations that imposes and in many patients there is no immediate limitation and it may be that with medication and other treatments that we can control symptoms completely and that allows you to have a full and active life without constraints. In some patients who have a very significant coronary artery disease that we can't necessarily fix in one go we may make some recommendations to limit some activity. In general we know that keeping you active is what keeps you fit and well for the long term and we would recommend that you undertake as much exercise as your body allows and try and recommend that on a daily or weekly basis. I often say to my patients that I would like to see them walking for at least 30 minutes three times a week. Something that brings a sweat on, something that makes you slightly out of puff and makes you feel slightly sweaty so that you know that you've done some good work. I'd make recommendations of changing your diet and dietary changes are really important because some of the causes of this can be related to the food that we've eaten and often the recommendation is to have what we call the Mediterranean diet which is a diet that is low in red meats, high in fresh fruit and vegetables and very high in olive oil as part as on salads and real reduction in fried food or foods high in sugar. Making those dietary adjustments can cause patients weight to come down and that gives them more energy and allows them to exercise more. Blood pressure is often improved and cholesterol is often improved in their blood as well. Finally if you're a smoker then my advice would be to discontinue smoking and I appreciate that can be really quite difficult particularly if you've done it for many years and we have strategies to help people and support people in giving up cigarettes. Okay thank you very much.