A ‘fatty’ caution during the holidays

With the holiday season at its peak, lots of "good food" come with the festive celebration. Good food unfortunately is associated by many with rich fatty dishes such as lechon and adobo and a lot of creamy desserts.

"We may be courting trouble with such kind of diet," says Blecenda Varona, head of the Health and Wellness Clinic of the Manila Adventist Medical Center.

Varona and other health experts are alarmed that Filipinos tend to be a little lax with their diet during the holiday season. Coupled with the physical, mental and emotional stresses brought about by hectic schedules and all the shopping and social obligations that have to be fulfilled during the season, it may not be a surprise that many develop heart attacks and strokes during or soon after the holidays.

Varona advises that one can prepare delicious and appetizing dishes even with healthy ingredients consisting of fish, lean meat and high-fiber vegetables and fruits. "All it requires is a little culinary ingenuity and the guests may be in for a sumptuous treat," she says. The Health and Wellness Clinic also offers such an advice.

Diet and exercise

"Diet and exercise remain the mainstays in the treatment of people with cholesterol problems, especially high-risk patients with diabetes and multiple risk factors," explains Dr. Ramon Abarquez, Jr., professor emeritus at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine.

Abarquez also strongly recommends that the entire family has to institute such healthy practices for these to be truly effective in the long-term. "It has to be a family affair," Abarquez emphasizes.

For those with cholesterol problems wherein diet alone may no longer be sufficient, there are now available effective cholesterol-lowering drugs which have been shown to be effective and relatively safe. Recent studies have shown that these drugs, particularly those belonging to the statin family, may be effective in preventing strokes and heart attacks even in those with normal or average cholesterol levels, particularly diabetics.

Simvastatin is one of the most scientifically well-documented statins. It is important though that the drug is taken religiously for at least three years to achieve long-term benefits. Many diabetes and heart experts now recommend that diabetics should be routinely placed on statins such as simvastatin regardless of their cholesterol levels.

At present, statins are often only prescribed to patients who have heart disease and elevated cholesterol levels. But new findings from the 20,000-patient Heart Protection Study (HPS) done in the United Kingdom show that statins also significantly reduce the risks of heart attacks and strokes in people who have diabetes, or have narrowing of arteries in their legs, or have had a stroke.

Standard therapy

Something which has not been shown in previous studies is that substantial benefits can be expressed even among those high-risk patients considered to have "normal" or "low" cholesterol levels. Because of this study, there is now strong evidence that existing treatment guidelines for elevated cholesterol levels should be changed so that irrespective of the blood cholesterol level, a statin should be considered as standard therapy for anybody at increased risk of either heart attacks or strokes.

The big catch, however, is that statins have to be taken for long periods of time, usually several years, for the high-risk patient to be benefited. Unfortunately, the cost of statins is beyond the reach of the ordinary wage earner. It may prevent strokes and heart attacks particularly in diabetics, but it may cost them an arm and a leg trying to afford the P2,000 to P3,000 that will buy a month’s supply of most statins.

Many local heart specialists have commended the efforts of pharmaceutical companies in lowering the prices of their life-extending and life-saving drugs in terms of price rollbacks and patient discounts. One such company is Therapharma which introduced recently an affordable brand of simvastatin. It is reportedly available at half the price compared to other brands.