Cardiovascular Health Check Results
If you didn’t receive a message with a link, you may still find the information on lifestyle measures below useful.
ASSIGN 2.0 Risk Visualizer
You can use the ASSIGN score given to you by the practice here to see the potential benefit of lifestyle changes and medication.
If you haven't been given a score by the practice as part of the recent health check initiative, you can still calculate your score at ASSIGN 2.0
If you don't know your recent blood pressure or cholesterol levels, the calculator will assume average levels based on the general population.
Interventions
Exercise
The NHS recommends at least 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of moderate exercise per week. This doesn’t need to be sprinting or completely puggling yourself on a daily basis, just an activity that gets you breathing a bit harder than normal, but still able to have a conversation. It doesn’t seem to make a difference if you do all 150 minutes in one go or several smaller sessions throughout the week.
Exercise reduces your risk about as much as taking a statin, but also means you avoid medication side effects and get other benefits in terms of overall wellbeing and fitness. If you do little or no exercise, we’d suggest this as a starting point. If you don’t know how to start becoming more active let us know and we can make a referral to Live Active.
Smoking
If you smoke, the very best thing you can do for your cardiovascular risk, overall health, and wellbeing is to stop. The benefits go far beyond future cardiovascular risk and include many types of cancer and other illnesses.
Help to stop smoking is available via local community pharmacies and community support is available at Quit Your Way Scotland.
Mediterranean diet
This is one of the few dietary interventions proven to reduce risk of events like heart attack and stroke. It involves reducing sugary drinks, snacks, and refined carbohydrates; increasing the proportion of fresh fruit and vegetables, legumes, and oily fish.
More information is available at Mediterranean Diet.
Statins
Statins can be helpful medications for lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease. We know statins work, and how well they work to reduce risk thanks to decades of evidence showing this.
Often people worry about the side effects of statins such as muscle pain, but these are relatively rare side effects and can often be avoided with a lower dose or different statin.
The important thing to consider is the benefit of the medication vs the risk of side effects, and you can see what the benefit to you is likely to be over the next decade using the calculator above.