Bypass surgery does not prompt patients to quit smoking or change their diet as they feel their operation and drugs have taken care of their problem, research carried out at the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG) and published yesterday by the Health Research Board (HRB) has found.
Presenting the findings on behalf of Prof Andrew Murphy of NUIG, Prof Ivan Perry warned that if these patients did not change their lifestyles they could be putting their lives at risk.
He said heart disease was the biggest killer in the Republic and while deaths from the disease had dropped by about 40 per cent since the mid 1980s due to better treatments and lifestyle changes, it was important that people realised heart disease was a chronic life-long disease.
"If you have a bypass and go back eating chips and smoking, then the artery that was grafted will itself become blocked and you could require another bypass," he said.
The study examined the experiences of people living with a heart condition in the west. Some 56 people from all walks of life and 14 medical professionals participated. They were aware that much heart disease was attributed to lifestyle.
"Most people take their prescribed medication but many people do not make the necessary lifestyle changes... wrongly believing that drugs and surgical intervention have taken care of the problem. There is therefore a need for improved patient education."
Another study carried out at University College Cork found that smoking and obesity explained heart disease in 87 per cent of women and 67 per cent of men.
The studies are published in A Picture of Health and detail the findings of research projects funded by the HRB in the past year.
Another study looked at the prevalence of obesity among young people with Type 2 diabetes. Prof John Nolan of St James's Hospital said he had 30 patients in the 15-25 age group attending his clinic with Type 2 diabetes and their average weight was 110 kilos (17.2 stone). Type 2 diabetes was a disease of middle-aged and elderly people a decade ago, he said. Youngsters now showed a profound degree of insulin resistance and presented with high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease. He is now looking at the effects of exercise on these patients.
"I think this is a time bomb. It's clearly a fruit of the obesity tree," he said.
He added that the number of new patients presenting with Type 2 diabetes had quadrupled to over 1,000 a year since 1996. More staff were needed to treat these patients, he said.