Protein Intake in Patients with Coronary Heart Disease
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The effectiveness of a targeted protein education telehealth intervention to increase protein intake in patients with coronary heart disease and low protein intake: A pilot study.
IRAS ID
296288
Contact name
Alasdair O'Doherty
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is when the blood vessels that carry oxygen to the heart become narrowed. Patients who have CHD are offered a programme called cardiac rehabilitation (CR). CR supports patients and provides advice to help improve the health of their heart in the long-term. Part of CR focuses on heathy eating to help patients with their weight and lower cholesterol levels. The main food groups talked about during CR are fats and carbohydrates. However, we believe that not enough information is given to patients about protein.
Protein is important for maintaining the amount of muscle our body contains. We have information that shows 7 in 10 people with CHD do not eat enough food containing protein, each day. We have also recently shown that more people with CHD have a very low amount of muscle compared to the general population. Low amounts of muscle can lower people’s quality of life, the amount of everyday tasks that they can do without needing help, and how long they might live. We believe that there should be more protein information given to patients who have CHD, to increase the amount of protein they eat each day.
We will ask patients, new to CR, to complete: a diary where they note all the food that they eat over 3 days, two questionnaires, and a remote sit-to-stand test (a test of leg strength). Patients with low protein intake will be randomly selected to receive either extra protein education or extra standard CR food information. The educational sessions will be delivered using pre-recorded video, accessed via the internet, or DVD. After 12 weeks (end of standard CR) and 24 weeks (12 weeks after completing CR), participants will repeat the food diary, the questionnaire and sit-to-stand test to understand whether their protein intake has changed.REC name
North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/NE/0117
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jul 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion