Nutritional Status Assessment of Atherosclerosis patients

Original Research Article

Abstract

Heart is a very important organ of human body and health of heart really matters a lot for human life. One may pay heavy consequences for minute negligence. Atherosclerosis is plaque formation in the inner lumen of arteries of heart that may block blood flow and cause heart attack. Many causative factors behind it include genetics, stress, faulty food habits, sedentary lifestyle, unusual weight gain etc. In our present study 30 patients were studied for the nutritional status as very little work has been done in this direction. Patients Anthropometric data, biochemical reports, clinical signs and symptoms and dietary recall was studied. It was found that majority of patients were male in the age group of 55 - 70 years. Therefore there is a special need to pay attention on reducing risk factors of heart diseases. Mean weight and BMI of male patients was 72 kg and 26.47 kg/m2, while for females it was 62 kg and 25.83 kg/ m2. Majority of the patients showed signs of shortness of breath, fatigue and constipation. Significant number of patients showed intake of calories, fat and sodium towards higher end of the requirements. Nutriti onal diagnosis showed that 56% patients were overweight while 20% patients were in the category of obesity. This is a very alarming situation that should be treated timely by careful nutritional assessment and counselling.