Season's Greetings and Tips for a Healthy Holiday Season
Welcome to the festive season, a time of joy, togetherness, and celebration! FH Europe Foundation extends heartfelt wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a prosperous New Year ahead.
As we enter this time of the year, we know it can be challenging to strike a balance between enjoying the festivities and maintaining a healthy lifestyle and we are here to help you.
We would like you to embrace the importance of prioritising health and well-being, especially keeping in mind the impact it may have on those living with inherited lipid conditions and the importance of looking after yourself and each other.
With the help of our community and experts, we are delighted to share some tips and helpful resources that will help us all to celebrate joyfully and mindfully, with a focus on our overall health and happiness, especially looking after our hearts.
Balancing Traditional Feasts with Healthier Options
Did you know that each 100g portion of Christmas pudding contains a very high number of sugars (32,6g), a medium amount of fat (9,7g) and salt (0,5g), as well as 296 calories? Or that by eating two classic chocolate bonbons, you consume 9g of sugar and 5g of fat (and it´s hard to eat only two, right?).
Traditional Christmas dinners can be health-friendly.
Mindful Eating Practices
Mindful eating is about being aware of what we are doing and actively participating in making those choices.
Studies show that being mindful of what we eat helps us avoid overeating since it takes time for our brain to register that our stomach is full and enjoy the flavours and experiences of the food we eat.
The top tips for incorporating mindful eating into your daily life include:
Smart Dining Strategies when not eating at home
Other smart tips:
No idea what or how to cook healthily?
Check out the following websites with healthy recipes:
You can also download:
Whether you have a specific diet or not, we encourage you to read the food labels and get to know more about your food intake (sugar/salt/fat/etc):
Mindful drinking
Alcohol raises cholesterol and blood pressure and causes weight gain. For your health, limit your Christmas consumption.
Here are some tips how to be more drink-aware during December:
Here are some links to help you understand alcohol and your heart health:
Amidst the joyous celebrations, it's crucial to recognize and manage the potential increase in stress levels. We understand the link between the holiday season and heightened stress, and we're here to lend a helping hand. Managing stress becomes pivotal during this time, and we have some effective tips to share. Alongside this, we strongly advocate for self-care activities as a means of alleviating stress. Whether it's taking intentional breaks or indulging in hobbies that bring you joy, prioritize these activities to nurture your well-being.
Here are some tips:
In essence, prioritize self-care during this holiday season. Sing your heart out, practice meditation, and cherish moments with loved ones. These self-care activities significantly contribute to your well-being, fostering joy and resilience. Remember, you're not alone in managing holiday stress. We're here to support you every step of the way, offering guidance and encouragement.
As the holiday season unfolds, maintaining physical activity becomes pivotal, and we're here to aid you in infusing activity into your celebrations with some tips:
Remember, incorporating physical activity into your holiday routine not only enhances your physical health but also elevates your spirits and contributes to your overall well-being. Share our tips for staying active and embracing healthier choices during this festive period, and feel free to exchange your methods for sustaining a healthy and joyful holiday season!
Other useful Resources:
The latest findings from the European Atherosclerosis Society Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Studies Collaboration (FHSC), the global FH registry, were published in The Lancet on Tuesday, December 12. The evidence clearly supports the efforts of FH Europe Foundation and its Network of Patient Organisations and the wider community advocating for early universal for cholesterol screening, known as the FH paediatric screening.
This landmark publication comes on the same day as the multidisciplinary advocacy community under the umbrella of European Alliance for Cardiovascular Health (EACH) comes together in Strasbourg at the European Parliament to call upon the European Union to prioritize cardiovascular health and asks for a robust policy response in a form of a Cardiovascular Health Plan for Europe, where prevention and early screening for inherited CVD risk factors like FH are clearly named in the effort to promote cardiovascular health across Europe.
FH Europe Foundation and the patients community are proud to partner with EAS FHSC and jointly advocate for a change in how FH is screened for, detected and managed to prevent atherosclerotic CDV.
Continue reading the press release below [adapted from the official press release here].
Finding children with familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH), the most common inherited lipid disorder, relies on family cascade screening, usually after a parent or relative has a heart attack, as physical signs of FH in children are uncommon, meaning that detection is delayed in most. These were the key findings from the European Atherosclerosis Society Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Studies Collaboration (FHSC) global registry, including nearly 12,000 children with FH from 48 countries, which were published in The Lancet on 12th December .[1] As early detection and treatment of FH are essential to prevent heart attacks associated with high cholesterol in later life, these data make the case for a paradigm shift to universal screening in children to avoid delays in detection.
Department of Primary Care & Public Health, Imperial College London, UK), who leads the FHSC registry: ‘Twenty-five years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognised FH as a public health priority, recommending early identification and treatment to prevent cardiovascular complications in later life.[2] These recommendations have been echoed recently by patient advocacy groups, the European Commission, and scientific societies as part of the Prague Declaration[3] to move towards universal screening for FH.[4,5] Early childhood is the ideal opportunity to detect FH and improve long term outcome. However, as shown by these latest data from the FHSC, the current realities of FH care show that children are not the primary focus of detection strategies. For a condition in which early intervention prevents heart attacks in later life, we should be shifting to universal cholesterol screening in early life, to identify and treat children with FH across the world so that they can live long and healthy lives.’
FH affects about one in 300 people,[6] meaning that worldwide in 2023, there are more than 6 million children and adolescents with FH. With nearly half a million born with FH annually,[7] low current identification rates (<10%) will translate to a further 7.3 million affected children by 2040, unless urgent action is taken.
The FHSC registry was established in 2015 with the mission of empowering the global clinical community to seek change in how FH is detected and managed. First data from over 42,000 adults with FH published in 2021 showed that only about 2% are diagnosed as children,[8] meaning that delayed diagnosis may account for one in 10 heart attacks under the age of 50 years.[9]
The work of the EAS FHSC, the global registry, and the initial findings published in the Lancet on the children with FH, have been recently shared with the FH Europe Foundation patients and advocates community at the FH Europe Foundation Annual Network Meeting in Amsterdam, which you can watch below.
This latest report from the FHSC is the largest global analysis of children and adolescents with FH, providing a snapshot of current practices for finding FH in this population. The registry includes 11,848 children with FH, about half of whom were girls, with a median age of 9.6 years at entry.1 The median low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol level for untreated children was 5.0 mmol/L (about 195 mg/dL), higher in those under 9 years and in girls.
Over two-thirds of children with FH are found with family cascade screening after a parent or relative has a heart attack or other cardiovascular event, or suspected cardiovascular disease, rather than identified directly. Importantly, clinical criteria used for detecting FH in adults have limited relevance for detecting FH in children. For example, irrespective of world region, physical signs of FH such as xanthomas or bumps in the skin containing cholesterol, are uncommon, seen in less than 2% of children with FH in high-income countries and less than 15% of those in less affluent regions. Therefore, relying on clinical criteria is likely to miss most children with FH, especially among those with a milder phenotype.
In adults, LDL cholesterol cut-offs are integral to the diagnosis of clinical FH, especially in lower-income regions with limited access to genetic testing, the gold standard for diagnosis. Even when these LDL cholesterol cut-offs are adapted for children, their use would miss between a quarter and over one-half of children with FH, when compared with genetic testing. Instead, the FHSC registry showed that novel age-specific LDL cholesterol distributions may have potential as a screening tool to improve early diagnosis, as these were able to differentiate children with and without FH from the first year of life.[1]
‘These latest findings from the FHSC show that we urgently need to implement universal cholesterol screening from an early age into public health policy and clinical care. The clock is ticking; already there are more than 6 million children with FH globally, with the vast majority undetected. We need to act now to reduce the widening gap between new cases and detection, and identify and treat children with FH early to avoid costly preventable heart disease in later life,’ said Professor Ray.
Chief Executive of FH Europe Foundation, Magdalena Daccord added: ‘These results from the FHSC on the detection and diagnosis of FH in children are alarming. However, there is now an important shift to promoting cardiovascular disease prevention and cardiovascular health. With the Prague Declaration, evidence from this global registry, and the cost effectiveness of screening on the one hand, and multidisciplinary collaborations that influence national and regional health policies together with increased awareness, education, and patient-citizen engagement on the other, we have a new opportunity to bend the curve. The right to health is a fundamental human right and with early FH detection through universal cholesterol screening we can deliver on the right for cardiovascular health for those children in the future and cardiovascular disease prevention for their parents today.’