Top 5 Cardiovascular Risk Factors Account for 50% of CV Deaths

A recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine reaffirmed what most of us know -

Diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, and cigarette smoking are really bad for you. In fact, if we eliminated these risk factors then we could expect deaths from heart disease and stroke to drop by at least 50%. It’s not real exciting to work on these things, but they definitely are worth the effort. Dramatic interventions and emergency life saving procedures like heart surgery, coronary bypass, electrical cardioversion are amazing and do save lives but in many cases would never have been needed if we just concentrated and succeeded on more basic and highly successful life style interventions.

We haven’t even talked about exercise, reducing chronic inflammation, and stress management. Likely these factors contribute substantially to the remaining 50% needed to almost completely eliminate heart disease. We focus our attention on all these factors when developing a preventive health strategy for our patients.

With more people dying every year from cardiovascular disease than the next four causes of death all put together we know we can make a significant impact on the health of our patients by concentrating our efforts here. This plan begins with testing and evaluation of your current status including detailed risk factor assessment and evaluation of your current cardiac status. Next comes the intervention stage including diet, exercise, supplementation, and in some cases medications to stop current high risk issues. Then we monitor our progress and adjust the treatment as needed by the individual.

Determine to get a complete evaluation, restart postponed treatment, and see it all the way to resolution. This most recent study is encouraging that what you do can make a big difference in your health and just might save you life.