PREVENTION IS BETTER THEN FANCY TREATMENT
I am reporting something late. I had wanted to post this earlier but I thought that the article on Avandia was more important. The June 7 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine carried an important article on coronary artery disease deaths. The good news is that , the authors reported that between 1998 to 2000, CAD deaths in USA had fallen by 40%. That is indeed very encouraging.
Now the bad news is that all the fancy treatment techniques account for less then half of this fall. More then 50% of the fall in CAD death was due to lifestyle modification and reduction in major coronary risk factors, like less hypertension, cigarette smoking, diabetes, obesity, etc. In fact, this article which came from CDC Atlanta, reported that the 40% reduction could have been more, if there was less obesity and diabetes, during this period. This is certainly an important piece of information for health planners and also the public at large. If we are prepared to lose weight, not smoke, exercise more, take less salt, take less fatty foods, etc, we all will live longer and better. Fancy cardiac treatment is important for those who are not well, but lowering our cardiac risk helps and save more people.
Now the bad news is that all the fancy treatment techniques account for less then half of this fall. More then 50% of the fall in CAD death was due to lifestyle modification and reduction in major coronary risk factors, like less hypertension, cigarette smoking, diabetes, obesity, etc. In fact, this article which came from CDC Atlanta, reported that the 40% reduction could have been more, if there was less obesity and diabetes, during this period. This is certainly an important piece of information for health planners and also the public at large. If we are prepared to lose weight, not smoke, exercise more, take less salt, take less fatty foods, etc, we all will live longer and better. Fancy cardiac treatment is important for those who are not well, but lowering our cardiac risk helps and save more people.
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