Research
Adherence
Lifestyle counseling, particularly written dietary advice and smoking cessation strategies, is poorly implemented in primary prevention clinical practice across Europe.
If you are seeing a doctor for prevention, do not rely on verbal advice alone. Ask for written dietary plans and smoking cessation strategies. The study shows that most patients do not receive these structured resources, which are crucial for making lasting lifestyle changes.
GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
Although most patients were advised to reduce excess weight and to follow a low-calorie diet, less than half received written recommendations... as few as 38.8% agreed on a smoking cessation strategy
Why this rating
Large-scale observational data.
Source
Achievement of treatment goals for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in clinical practice across Europe: the EURIKA study
José R. Banegas et al. · European Heart Journal · 2011
DOI 10.1093/eurheartj/ehr080
cross_sectional · n=7641Cited 356×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- In primary prevention clinical practice across Europe, less than half of treated hypertensive and dyslipidaemic patients achieve target blood pressure and lipid levels, and only one-third of treated diabetic patients achieve the HbA1c target.Good
- Even when primary risk factors (blood pressure, cholesterol, HbA1c, BMI) are successfully controlled through treatment, a significant proportion of patients (approx. 35-39%) remain at high cardiovascular disease risk.Good
Related findings · Adherence
- Regular physical activity (at least 150 minutes/week of moderate-intensity) reduces all-cause and cardiovascular mortality by 20-30% and lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes by 25-35%.Strong
- Increasing physical activity from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one in middle adulthood significantly reduces the risk of coronary events compared to remaining sedentary.Strong
- Resistance exercise is the only intervention capable of consistently restoring muscle function and strength in sarcopenia, partially overcoming age-related anabolic resistance.Strong
This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →