A study involving six countries, including Portugal, has concluded that victims of strokes or heart-attacks in the main don’t change the bad habits that caused their health problems in the first place.
The EUROPREV study showed that more than half the patients quizzed hadn’t increased their physical fitness, and half the women – and a third of the men – continued smoking.
A ‘considerable proportion’ still suffer blood pressure and cholesterol issues.
The study, published this week, only involved patients who had visited their GP in the year before their collapse.
Explain investigators, “this means results could have been even worse”, particularly as patients who haven’t sought medical help would almost certainly be less interested in changing their lifestyles to become ‘more healthy’.
According to Eurostat, almost 40% of European citizens consult their GP once or twice a year, with 25% consulting them between three and five times a year.
The countries involved in this study were Portugal, Croatia, France, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey.
