ATLANTA (Reuters) - U.S. doctors are failing to counsel their patients about ways to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, which kills almost a million Americans each year, federal health officials said Thursday.
The American Heart Association said cardiovascular disease, which claimed 960,592 lives in 1995, is the leading cause of death in the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed almost 30,000 visits to physicians and found fewer than one-fourth of the doctors counseled their patients about behaviors that could greatly reduce the risk of heart disease, the agency reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
"Only 19.1 percent of office visits included counseling for physical activity, only 22.8 percent included counseling about diet and only 10.4 percent included counseling for weight reduction," CDC epidemiologist Dr. Wayne Giles said.
He said doctors know the health benefits of changing patients' behavior, but they wrongly fear their advice will not make any difference.
"Physicians often state that they feel that they are ill-prepared or lack the training to counsel patients," Giles said. "Patients often mention a physician's advice as a major motivating factor in changing their behavior."
Fewer than half of the smokers who went to doctors' offices in 1995 were advised to stop smoking, even though health benefits occur during the first year of quitting.
"Once someone stops smoking, the benefits for cardiovascular disease are achieved real quickly," Giles said.
Obstetricians and gynecologists were approximately half as likely as cardiologists and family and general practitioners to counsel patients about the benefits of physical activity, diet and weight reduction in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, the CDC said.
"We need to increase education in other physician specialties about cardiovascular disease prevention," Giles said.
"Twenty percent of the total U.S. population has one or more different types of cardiovascular disease. That includes diseases such as high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, rheumatic fever, rheumatic heart disease and other forms of heart disease," Giles said.