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SISITYSO? Archive in wellness.

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Misty L. Trepke
http://www.searching-alternatives.com

Nearly All Heart Risk Due To Bad Habits
8-20-03

CHICAGO (Reuters) -- The vast majority of heart attacks strike
people who either smoke, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol
or diabetes, debunking the perception that heart problems can strike
anyone, researchers said on Tuesday. Roughly nine out of 10 patients
surveyed suffered from one of the four risk factors, often for
years, before experiencing a heart problem, according to a pair of
reports that analyzed accumulated data from previous studies.

The finding challenged claims repeated in medical literature that
half of those who suffer heart-related events do not have any of the
risk factors, said study author Dr. Philip Greenland of Northwestern
University in Chicago.

Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association,
Greenland found risk factors were present in 92 percent of men who
suffered heart attacks, and 87 percent of the women.

"Based on these and related findings concerning the major risk
factors, we suggest that preventing development of unfavorable
levels of blood cholesterol and blood pressure, cigarette smoking,
diabetes, and unfavorable body weight (as a precursor of unfavorable
blood lipid and blood pressure levels and diabetes) should be given
even greater priority than is presently the case," he wrote.

Greenland's study analyzed data from three previous multiyear
studies that surveyed nearly 400,000 subjects.

The second study, which analyzed surveys from outside the United
States, found at least 85 percent of roughly 120,000 patients with
angina or who underwent angioplasty or similar treatment had at
least one of the four risk factors.

If the patient smoked, the heart event took place nearly a decade
earlier than it did in patients who suffered from one of the other
risk factors.

"It is increasingly clear that the four conventional risk factors
and their resulting health risks are largely preventable by a
healthy lifestyle," wrote study author Umesh Khot of Indiana Heart
Physicians in Indianapolis.

The studies provided "evidence that convincingly challenges the
frequent claim that 'only 50 percent' of coronary heart disease is
attributable to the conventional risk factors of smoking, diabetes,
hypertension, and hyperlipidemia," wrote John Cano and Ami
Iskandrian of the University of Alabama in an accompanying
editorial.

Re: SISITYSO? Archive in wellness.

Re: SISITYSO? Archive in wellness.