Lumen Summer 2018 - Flipbook - Page 18
Exercising your way to a healthy heart
What if you were told you had a potentially life
threatening heart condition that could be
managed without medication or surgery and
just by changing your lifestyle?
This is the reality for patients being treated for
AFib by a team led by Professor Prash
Sanders, Director of the Centre for Heart
Rhythm Disorders at the University of
Adelaide, and Director of Cardiac
Electrophysiology and Pacing at the Royal
Adelaide Hospital.
AFib is an abnormal heart rhythm and the most
common heart disorder. It’s the leading cause
of stroke, heart failure and hospitalisation in the
West and is predicted to affect 16 million by
2050 in the United States alone.
Many cases of AFib go undiagnosed,
according to Prash who has spent almost two
decades researching techniques for AFib
prevention, management and cures.
“Approximately two percent of the population
have the condition, but we think this could
be higher. We know it’s the cause of a third of
strokes in the community but suspect another
third is caused by the condition,” he said.
AFib risk factors are obesity, high blood
pressure, diabetes, sleep apnoea, lack of
exercise, smoking and alcohol consumption.
Treatment for the condition is an invasive and
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THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
ABOVE
Professor Lisa Butler,
photo by Mike Smith,
Mike Smith Pictures
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Professor Prash
Sanders outside
the office
complex surgical procedure, with significant
waiting times.
The growing number of people waiting to have
the procedure prompted Prash and his team to
address the lifestyle factors while people waited
for treatment. The results were outstanding.
“We found the condition completely
disappeared in about 40 percent of people we
treated. This was a clue to thinking maybe we
could reverse the whole process by treating the
underlying reasons why people were getting
AFib,” said Prash.
Shifting their focus to addressing lifestyle
factors, Prash and his team set up a lifestyle
clinic in Adelaide to work with patients one on
one to achieve their goals. Prash attributes the
program’s success to the relationships that were
built with patients.
“With one on one interaction, monitoring and
working with the person, we are able to get
them to make these changes,” he said.
Prash’s interest in heart rhythm disorders was
first sparked when he encountered clinical
medicine after graduating from the University
of Adelaide.
“At the time, the field of heart disorders was
exploding. It was changing from a field where
we could recognise there were problems to a
field where we could actually do something.
It was an exciting time to be exposed to this,”
he said.
