Preventing Hypertension: Do Primary Care Providers Practice What They Prescribe?

A study from the CDC-presented at the American Society of Hypertension meeting-offers a clarion call to primary care doctors to practice the healthy lifestyles they preach!

In this 4-minute podcast, Jing Fang, MD, lead author of the study “Primary Care Providers’ Lifestyle Behaviors and Associated Patient Recommendations for Hypertension Prevention,” summarizes encouraging results. That study looked at the percentage of primary care providers who recommended healthy lifestyle practices for hypertension prevention. 

Preventing Hypertension

A key finding: a primary physician’s healthy lifestyle behaviors may be linked to his or her recommendations for hypertension prevention. Of 6 key healthy lifestyle recommendations for hypertension prevention, the study found that:
. 89.4% of primary care physicians recommended that patients consume a healthy diet
. 89.9% recommended that patients reduce their salt intake
. 90.3% recommended that patients attain or maintain a healthy weight. 69.4% recommended that patients limit alcohol intake
. 95.1% recommended that patients be physically active
. 90.4% recommended that patients stop smoking

Fifty-six percent of practitioners recommended all 6 healthy habits.

Details of the study can be found here.