Study on healing therapies for cardiovascular risk factors

Very few controlled studies are available in the literature on the effectiveness of inpatient treatment. This also applies to the cardiovascular risk profile. In addition, in many studies the parameters are only recorded at the beginning and end of the treatment, i.e. in the special situation of the rehabilitation clinic. Finally, follow-up examinations are usually based on interviews with patients or general practitioners, which is problematic in terms of measurement reliability. In order to rule out these problems, the Institute of Balneology and Medical Climatology under Prof. Dr. med. Chr. Gutenbrunner conducted a prospective controlled study with a 1-year follow-up, in which all measurements were taken under standardized conditions at the patient's home location.

A total of 199 patients with elevated cardiovascular risk factors took part in the study. The measurement points were 14 days before (U1), 14 days after (U2) and 1 year after (U3) inpatient treatment or the control phase. The most important therapeutic elements of the treatment were cardiopulmonaryendurance training, an individually adapted diet, training programs on cardiovascular risk factors and other physical and balneological treatments related to other diseases. The control group was examined in the same way, but did not receive any additional intervention. All patients remained under the control of their GPs, and the measurement results were reported to the GPs. The main target parameters were metabolic and circulatory risk factors as well as body weight (BMI, apolipoprotein B, fasting insulin, fibrinogen, mean arterial pressure).

82 patients in the study group and 94 patients in the control group completed the study. The baseline values were comparable in both groups. A multivariate analysis (Wilks-Lambda) of the changes in the aforementioned risk parameters up to the first examination after the treatment showed statistically highly significant differences between the study and control groups, with the differences contributing to the overall result in the following order: BMI, mean arterial pressure of apolipoprotein B, fasting insulin and fibrinogen. The differences in the changes between the study and control groups one year after the treatment were only weakly significant.

Overall, there was a good immediate effect of the inpatient treatment on the cardiovascular risk profile. One year after the treatment, however, the changes were again significantly reduced and no longer relevant for all parameters. It therefore appears necessary to develop and evaluate networked models between treatment procedures and targeted diagnosis-specific care at the patient's home location .