I am very pleased to announce that Angelina Moore Maia and Pieter Tryzelaar are both joining me on the website. With backgrounds in nutrition and culinary arts, they will focus on expanding the diet and recipes sections.
Angelina has a specific interest in diabetes and childhood obesity, while Pieter brings his considerable culinary talents to the table. I know they will make important contributions to the site and raise the quality of this section to hitherto unknown heights.
Since the website went online in April of this year, significant changes, both in concept and execution have taken place. What was initially intended only as a place to go for information about coronary artery disease, has continued to evolve into a much wider field, due to questions and comments from my readers. With Angela & Pieter taking over the food section, we will be able to respond to a growing interest in healthy dietary habits and put them in an affordable format that will be both delicious and easy to prepare.
Coronary artery disease involves so much more than a decision about what procedure for treatment to choose. In a society that is growing ever more obese, with a rapidly increasing rate of diabetes, behavior modification with weight loss, diet & exercise as its main staple is a much neglected part of medical treatment.
Today’s busy physicians are so busy with putting out health care fires, and under so much pressure from the medical industry to use their products (both pharmaceutical & interventional) that secondary prevention barely gets a foot in the treatment door.
It was an ongoing frustration to me during my years in practice to find my surgical successes left to themselves, with the atherosclerosis causing their CAD often neglected. As they were now asymptomatic and frequently able to go back to an otherwise “normal” lifestyle, there was no longer a reason to see their doctor. After a short interval, usually not more than a year, smoking, lack of exercise and poor diet habits were back on their behavior regimen, until the next cardiac event.
This is what I plan to influence: the opportunity to steer patients and their families to a healthier lifestyle, which incidentally is far more cost effective than having procedures and taking pills!
I hope the shifting focus to include dietary behavior modifications and recommendations (with others yet to come) means we are paying attention to your needs,
Dr T