Effectiveness of a Volunteer-Delivered Lifestyle Modification Program for Reducing Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors

Employer-Funded Complete Health Improvement Program: Preliminary Results of Biomarker Changes

“…13 The current study's findings of statistically significant changes in BMI, total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, FPG, and weight corresponded with the findings of Rankin et al 13 However, Rankin et al 13 also found statistically significant changes in systolic BP, diastolic BP, and triglyceride levels. 23 Rabacow et al 24 found women to have more sick days after adjusting for type of work, indicating that younger employees, those with lower education levels, and employees with more stress had increased absenteeism as well.…”

“…Of note is the sex disparity reported in the study by Rankin et al, 13 which was also apparent in the results of the current study and another CHIP study. 22 Further research should clarify why female participants outnumber male participants in CHIP courses to encourage men who would benefit from attending CHIP and similar programs.…”

Is Depression the Wrong Treatment Target for Improving Outcome in Coronary Artery Disease?

“…It is thus not surprising that psychotherapeutic treatments specifically geared to lifestyle modification have achieved impressive results in CAD [58,59,60]. A low-fat vegetarian diet, smoking cessation, stress management training and moderate exercise turned out to be effective secondary prevention strategies of CAD in several clinical trials [58,61,62,63,64,65,66,67], leading to a significant decrease in coronary atherosclerosis, rehospitalizations and cardiovascular events.…”

Current Psychosomatic Practice

“…Areas that have been extensively explored are cardiovascular [120,161,162,163,164,165], gastrointestinal [166], pulmonary [167], neurological disorders [168], chronic pain [169,170], diabetes [171,172], HIV/AIDS [173,174], and cancer [175,176,177]. These interventions may improve lifestyle and self-management, coping, quality of life, distress (especially depression and anxiety), course of physical illness, treatment adherence, and reduction in utilization of medical services [157,158,159,160,161,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169,170,171,172,173,174,175,176,177]. Dealing with the psychological distress of family caregivers is another important area of action [178].…”