This service brings a clinical dietitian into cardiovascular care. It looks at what you actually eat and builds a realistic eating plan to lower LDL cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and weight, alongside, not instead of, your medicines.
The strongest evidence supports overall dietary patterns, not single foods or supplements: the Mediterranean diet has reduced heart attacks and strokes in randomised trials, and the DASH diet lowers blood pressure. Diet alone seldom replaces medication in people who already have heart disease.
Conditions this service looks after
- High LDL cholesterol and high triglycerides
- High blood pressure
- Coronary artery disease, including after a heart attack, stent or bypass
- Heart failure needing salt and fluid guidance
- Type 2 diabetes, prediabetes and metabolic syndrome
- Overweight and obesity with cardiovascular risk
- People on warfarin who need consistent vitamin K intake
- Familial hypercholesterolaemia, as an adjunct to drug therapy
Tests you may be offered
- Dietary assessment: A food diary or structured recall covering several days, including drinks, salt and alcohol.
- Body measurements: Weight, body mass index, waist circumference and, where available, body composition analysis.
- Blood tests: Lipid profile, fasting glucose or HbA1c, kidney and liver function, uric acid.
- Blood pressure: Clinic and home readings to measure the effect of salt reduction.
- Medication review: Interactions between food and drugs, for example grapefruit with some statins, and potassium intake with certain heart medicines.
Treatments available
- Mediterranean-style eating plan: Vegetables, fruit, pulses, whole grains, nuts, olive oil and fish, with little processed meat and few refined carbohydrates.
- DASH approach and salt reduction: Aiming for under about 5 grams of salt a day, with attention to bread, cheese, preserved foods and restaurant meals.
- LDL-lowering foods: Replacing saturated with unsaturated fats, oats and barley, soluble fibre, nuts and plant sterols, typically lowering LDL by 10 to 15 percent.
- Triglyceride plan: Less alcohol, sugar and refined starch, and more oily fish.
- Structured weight management: Calorie targets, behavioural support and coordination with medical weight-loss therapy where prescribed.
- Heart failure guidance: Individual salt and fluid advice, daily weighing and prevention of malnutrition in advanced disease.
When to ask for a specialist opinion
- Your cholesterol or blood pressure is raised and you want to see what lifestyle change can achieve before or alongside tablets
- You have had a cardiac event and are unsure what to eat
- You have heart failure and struggle with salt or fluid limits
- You are gaining weight or have developed prediabetes
- You are confused by conflicting diet claims and want evidence-based advice
Travelling to Türkiye for this care
Nutrition counselling is not a reason to travel, since it depends on follow-up and on foods available where you live. It is a worthwhile add-on during a cardiac check-up or after a procedure in Istanbul: one session of 45 to 60 minutes produces a written plan adapted to your cuisine, which can be reviewed later by video call.
Send your reports, scans and a short history and a Clinic-Y coordinator replies within 24 hours with suitable teams and written, all-inclusive proposals side by side. Reviewing your case is free.
الأسئلة المتكررة
Are eggs, butter or coconut oil bad for the heart?
An egg a day is fine for most people. Butter and coconut oil are high in saturated fat and raise LDL; olive and rapeseed oil are better daily choices.
Do omega-3, garlic or vitamin supplements prevent heart disease?
Trials of over-the-counter supplements have been largely disappointing. Eating fish is recommended; a prescription-strength purified omega-3 has a role only in specific patients with high triglycerides.
Is a keto or very low carbohydrate diet safe for my heart?
It can lower weight and triglycerides in the short term, but LDL cholesterol rises markedly in some people. Have your lipids checked if you follow one.