Cardiac rehabilitation is a multi-modal program to improve risk factor management and quality of life and is standard of care for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. While exercise is the cornerstone component, nutrition therapy is considered a core component of cardiac rehabilitation by patients and healthcare practitioners. Due to the common mismatch between demand and accessibility of program dietitian time, individualized nutrition support is not available for all patients and for those who receive it, adherence is a key challenge. This gap could be narrowed by: 1) utilizing strategies to enhance patient adherence to dietary interventions; and 2) implementing novel dietary interventions that can be impactful yet feasible for broad dissemination. This session will provide a discussion of: 1) scientific evidence for the role of nutrition in cardiovascular health and cardiac rehabilitation; 2) current application of nutrition intervention in cardiac rehabilitation in Canada and its associated limitations; 3) identified patient and system barriers to effective nutrition intervention in cardiac rehabilitation; 4) practical solutions to identified barriers including methods to enhance patient adherence and suggestion of novel low-barrier nutrition interventions such as time-restricted eating.
Dr. Carla Prado is a Professor and Registered Dietitian at the University of Alberta. She directs the Human Nutrition Research Unit, renowned as one of the top research and training facilities for body composition and energy metabolism assessments worldwide. Dr. Prado is an expert in assessing nutritional status through the precise measurement of body composition and energy metabolism. The focus of her current research program is to investigate the prevalence and health outcomes of abnormal body composition phenotypes in patients with diverse chronic conditions. She is also developing targeted nutrition interventions to optimize body composition and improve health outcomes. Dr. Prado is an Associate Editor of Clinical Nutrition, the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle, and Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition & Metabolic Care. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and a member of the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. She has been recognized in the ‘Canada’s Top 40 under 40’ list, named as one of the ‘Most Powerful Women in Canada: Top 100’, and distinguished as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate (Web of Science).