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Give it Some Heart!

Resident Dietician for Molloy’s Lifestyle Pharmacies & Health Stores, Caroline Brosnihan outlines the role that Dieticians and Pharmacists should play in the fight against cardiovascular disease.

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harmacists, Dieticians and pharmacy staff each play important roles, but their efficacy increases when they work together. Being part of a team means filling a valuable role. The best teams have people who complement each other and push the group’s performance beyond that of the individual. In a pharmacy setting, this concept is especially important.

A healthy diet and lifestyle are the best weapons to fight cardiovascular disease, and members of Molloys team are committed to help all the community to eat a heart healthy diet.

Healthy eating and an active lifestyle are proven methods to reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. Dieticians work in a variety of clinical and community settings leading nutrition interventions to reduce cardiovascular disease.

Coronary Heart Disease is one of the leading causes of death in Ireland. One of the risk factors is high cholesterol, as it causes fatty deposits to build up in the arteries making it harder for the heart to pump blood around the body. Cholesterol is a fatty substance required for many vital body processes. As well as being a structural component of all cell membranes, it is used by the body to produce some hormones, and it is a precursor to bile acids, which are vital for fat digestion.

As a Dietician, I will assess the patient's diet and implement cholesterol lowering advice where appropriate. Reducing cholesterol levels by 1% can lower the risk of heart disease by 2%. Also, by just eating healthy it is possible to reduce cholesterol levels by 10%!

The main focus for a cholesterol lowering diet is reducing the total amount of fat you eat, as well as the saturated and trans-saturated fat.

Replacing saturated fats (e.g. fatty and processed meats, full-fat dairy products, cakes, biscuits, etc.) with a small amount of polyunsaturated

fats (e.g. vegetable oils) and monounsaturated fats (e.g. rapeseed oil, nuts etc.) will lower LDL and increase HDL cholesterol.

Diet plays an important role in maintaining a healthy heart, but there are many other factors that are linked with heart health. other factors include smoking, being overweight, and high blood pressure.

It is also recommended to increase omega-3 in your diet. Oily fish (e.g. salmon, trout, mackerel, herring and sardines) is the richest form of omega-3 and can help to reduce cholesterol. Fibre has been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol, by decreasing the amount of cholesterol absorbed by the intestine. It is also recommended to increase fruit and vegetables to at least 5-a-day and have a handful of unsalted, uncoated nuts per day, e.g. walnuts, pecans, almonds, brazil nuts, etc.

Plant sterol and stanol esters are also regularly promoted as cholesterol

lowering products. They compete with cholesterol in the gut and inhibit the absorption of cholesterol. They are effective in lowering cholesterol levels.

Another factor to consider in relation to coronary heart disease is high blood pressure. High blood pressure has been linked with high salt intake. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid adding salt to foods, and reduce the consumption of foods which contain a lot of salt, e.g. bread, packet soups, processed meats and cheese. A high salt intake translates to >1.5g per 100g. Also, customers and clients can get their blood pressure checked (free of charge) at Molloy's Lifestyle Pharmacies & Health Stores.

Diet plays an important role in maintaining a healthy heart, but there are many other factors that are linked with heart health. Important factors include smoking, being overweight, and high blood pressure.

As a Dietician, I recommend small manageable changes to stay physically active, weight loss (if required) and a cardio-protective diet.

We believe that everybody should invest in their health, but appreciate that it can be expensive therefore cholesterol testing is available at a very reasonable cost at Molloy's Lifestyle Pharmacies & Health Stores.

The cholesterol test identifies the patients’ total cholesterol, HDL (good) cholesterol, LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglyceride level.

Caroline Brosnihsn runs a successful weight loss programme named Steps4Success. She also has a facebook page which she regularly updates with healthy eating tips: www.facebook.com/Steps4Success00 Caroline is also available to do group talks to workplaces/clinics/ health professionals/teams e.g. sports teams, etc.

Caroline can be contacted by logging onto www.molloyspharmacy.com and clicking on ‘ask the dietician’.

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