How can people with chronic diseases resist the epidemic? Authoritative answers!

Recently, the topic of the weakened pathogenicity of the Omicron variant has attracted public attention. Are patients with cardiovascular disease at risk of severe illness after infection? How can patients with chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes resist the epidemic? The State Council's joint prevention and control mechanism organized relevant experts to provide authoritative answers.

Patients with cardiovascular disease should focus on controlling underlying diseases

The weather is cold in autumn and winter. If people are tired, excited, or overfed, the incidence of cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and high blood pressure will increase, and even worsen.

"If you have a cardiovascular attack, don't be afraid or anxious, and take medicine in time." Zhou Yujie, executive vice president of Beijing Anzhen Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University and executive vice president of Beijing Institute of Cardiopulmonary and Vascular Diseases, said that cardiovascular patients should always have antihypertensive drugs at home. Don't be afraid if your blood pressure rises, take medicine on time and don't stop taking it in the middle. In addition, if you have a myocardial infarction, you should go to the hospital for interventional treatment in time.

"We found that if cardiovascular patients controlled their underlying diseases well, their risk of infection with the Omicron variant did not increase." Zhou Yujie said that in clinical treatment, except for those with fever, patients without fever were the same as other asymptomatic infected people. Therefore, cardiovascular patients should not be afraid of the new coronavirus, but should focus on controlling their underlying diseases.

Zhou Yujie said that prevention of cardiovascular disease is better than cure. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the best way to prevent it. First of all, you should eat a balanced diet, avoid eating a diet high in oil, salt, and cholesterol; secondly, you should quit smoking and limit alcohol consumption; thirdly, you should exercise moderately, walk around at home or in an open space, or do some anaerobic exercise to exercise the muscles of your arms and legs, which is good for your cardiovascular system; finally, keep a balanced mentality and don't be anxious.

Does infection with the new coronavirus affect the effect of antihypertensive drugs? Zhou Yujie said that so far, no new coronavirus has been found to affect antihypertensive drugs.

Diabetic patients should avoid blood sugar disorders

"The most important thing for diabetic patients to resist the epidemic is to control their blood sugar well." Guo Lixin, director of the Department of Endocrinology and chief physician of the National Geriatric Medical Center of Beijing Hospital, said that the first is to stabilize the overall blood sugar level and strive to control glycosylated hemoglobin to the standard, and the second is to reduce blood sugar fluctuations. To achieve these two points, on the one hand, a reasonable diet should be taken, that is, a healthy diet should be followed by doctors to guide diabetic patients, a reasonable diet, appropriate increase in nutrition, and increase in high-quality protein intake; on the other hand, moderate exercise should be taken, such as jogging, brisk walking, and certain strength training should also be performed. At the same time, blood sugar should be monitored regularly, including fasting blood sugar and postprandial blood sugar. Once diabetic patients have symptoms of hypoglycemia, they should test their blood sugar at any time, eat carbohydrates appropriately, adjust their medications and lifestyle, and keep their blood sugar as stable as possible. At the same time, attention should be paid to dyslipidemia, abnormal blood pressure and other metabolic abnormalities associated with diabetes. In this way, resistance can be enhanced and the epidemic can be smoothly passed.

Diabetic patients should adhere to medication. Guo Lixin said that diabetes is a lifelong disease. Although some diabetic patients can achieve clinical relief to a certain extent, they still need lifestyle intervention and drug treatment. Patients should choose appropriate drugs and adjust treatment plans in time by monitoring blood sugar. It should be noted that even if blood sugar is well controlled, medication should not be stopped at will, because once the medication is stopped, blood sugar fluctuations will occur, increasing the risk of infection.

Diabetic patients should avoid anxiety. Guo Lixin said that once diabetic patients are anxious, especially for a long time, they will have elevated levels of various "stress hormones". Stress hormones antagonize the hypoglycemic effect of insulin, causing an imbalance in hormone secretion in the body, which can easily aggravate blood sugar abnormalities. In addition, anxiety can easily lead to insomnia and sleep structure disorders, further aggravating blood sugar disorders. Therefore, diabetic patients should maintain a calm state of mind and control their blood sugar at a relatively good level.

Source: People's Daily Online