Watch: Farmers at greater than average risk of heart disease - cardiologist
The Mater Private Hospital's Dr. JJ Coughlan has called on farmers to get checked out for heart disease or high cholesterol.
Speaking to Agriland this week, Dr. Coughlan highlighted research that has found that three quarters of farmers have four or more risk factors for heart disease.
Dr Coughlan is a preventative cardiologist at the Mater Private who specialises in the management of patients with disease in the arteries of their heart, in particular, patients who have had heart attacks or need to have procedures to treat the arteries.
He explained that heart disease is one of the most common causes of death and illness in Ireland, and that as we get older it becomes more and more common.
Dr Coughlan said: "There's been recent research conducted on farmers in Ireland, where they've actually gone to farmers marts and screened farmers for heart risk factors, so things like blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugars.
"Most of these farmers weren't aware that they had any problems at all."
"One of the most important aspects of heart disease is that if we can treat risk factors, we can actually prevent problems like heart attacks and strokes going forward.
"Talk to your GP or come and see a specialist, and find out whether or not you're at risk of heart disease, and hopefully, in that way, we can actually prevent people having problems in the future," Dr. Coughlan added.
The most common risk factors in farmers includes having high blood pressure, having high levels of cholesterol in the blood, having high blood sugars, which can also be a sign of diabetes, and being overweight or obese.
"What the research in the Irish population showed is that farmers have more of these risk factors than the population on average," Dr. Coughlan said.
"This suggests that farmers are more at risk of heart disease than the average population here in Ireland. There's a variety of potential reasons, one of the things with farmers is that even though they have a very physical job, this can often mean that they don't get time to actually perform exercise."
The cardiologist also said that the diet of farmers can also be slightly worse compared to the general population.
"They eat more salty and sugary food, eat more deep fried food in comparison to the average Irish population.
"When you're working a very stressful job, long hours and you have a lot of responsibility, it can sometimes be difficult to take the time to actually take care of your own health," he added.
The Mater Private offers a heart health service, where farmers can refer themselves to talk to a cardiologist about their heart health.
Farmers can also talk to their local GP to arrange a health check.
