International Task Force for Prevention of
Coronary Heart Disease
CORONARY HEART DISEASE: REDUCING THE RISK
Among the modifiable causes of CHD, faulty diet, smoking and lack of exercise are centrally important. Hence health education and statutory measures to improve health related behaviour by the entire population are fundamental aspects of prevention. These approaches to a healthy life style comprise the population strategy, which deserves the advocacy and active support of all doctors, not least by serving as role models. This monograph focuses on the more direct role of clinicians in identifying and treating persons who are at increased cardiovascular risk, i.e. the individual or high-risk strategy. Among persons at highest risk are those with established cardiovascular disease. Reduction of risk in such patients is termed secondary prevention, while primary prevention addresses persons at increased risk but without evidence of cardiovascular disease. However, it should be recognised that the division between primary and secondary prevention is in some respects an arbitrary one, since many individuals without symptoms of CHD may have potentially hazardous atherosclerosis of coronary or other arteries. Thus, in the population as a whole, there is a continuum of CHD risk from low to very high.