Lifestyle counseling on diet, exercise recommended for overweight Americans

Remaining in a good shape and losing extra flab can do wonders in keeping you healthy. Health experts and doctors also ask patients, especially those having weight problem, to adopt a healthy lifestyle, eat well and engage in high physical activity. But an independent health panel says just asking for right routine is not enough, a proper guidance is equally important.

The US Preventive Services Task Force has recommended intensive health-related behavioral counseling for obese and overweight Americans, who are at high risk of developing heart problems.

The Task Force is an independent panel that carries literature reviews of medical researches and drafts guidelines accordingly on preventive care.

The literature review highlights 74 studies on different lifestyle interventions that provided enough evidence to the fact that the intensive behavioral counseling on diet and exercise improved the health conditions after one or two years.

According to the USPSTF, intensive behavioral counseling on proper diet and right exercise should be given to overweight patients in America, who show high risk for heart disease.

'It is a ground-breaking information that includes 25 years of rigorous research on helping patients with weight problem in regaining their shape and stay healthy,' Dr. Jennifer, lead author and researcher from S. Lin from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, said.

The panelist say health experts should provide intensive lifestyle counseling in order to guide the obese and overweight people with their eating habits and amount of physical activities needed and other activities that can lead to weight gain.

Intensive counseling roughly includes five to 15 sessions with any medical professional including doctor, dietitian, fitness expert and exercise specialist. The counseling may carried in two ways: in person (which should be followed on larger basis) and over the phone or video conversation. The counseling session will help the patients in setting their health objective, health education and monitoring their progress.

The American Council on Exercise has welcomed the recommendations made by the USPSTF, saying it will act as a remarkable milestone for ACE professionals.

'This is for the first time, an independent national recommending authority has named properly trained exercise professionals among the professions qualified to deliver behavior-change programming, which includes structured, supervised physical activity, as part of the healthcare system,' said Natalie Digate Muth, ACE Healthcare Solutions Director.

The cardiovascular diseases claim one life every 33 seconds or about a million lives each year. Experts say if the pace continues, the cardiovascular disease will become the leading cause of deaths in the world by 2020.

The recommendations were published on August 26 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Entities 0 Name: USPSTF Count: 2 1 Name: Natalie Digate Muth Count: 1 2 Name: US Preventive Services Task Force Count: 1 3 Name: Task Force Count: 1 4 Name: ACE Healthcare Solutions Director Count: 1 5 Name: S. Lin Count: 1 6 Name: Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research Count: 1 7 Name: Dr. Jennifer Count: 1 8 Name: Annals of Internal Medicine Count: 1 9 Name: America Count: 1 10 Name: American Council on Exercise Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1mNabRO Title: New recommendations for overweight people with heart risks Description: Overweight patients with risk factors for heart disease should be sent by their doctors for "intensive behavioral counseling" about diet or exercise, according to new recommendations from the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). That includes overweight people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, 'metabolic syndrome' or blood sugar levels higher then normal and on the cusp of type 2 diabetes.