Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Blog #2: Lifetime Heart Risks Are Higher Than Thought


Recent studies are now showing that the risk of heart disease is becoming more prominent in all people, and that most doctors only zoom in on the next ten years of peoples lives. The current approach to heart disease is to focus in on the next five-ten years of somebody’s life, but people with multiple risk factors have a higher lifetime risk for heart disease, and in sometimes ten times the rates, according to the new studies.
            The principal investigator, Donald Lloyd-Jones, says, “We are giving incomplete and misleading risk information is we only focus on the next 10 years of someone’s life,”. The key finding in these studies was that “healthy men age 45 have a 1.4 percent risk of a heart attack or stroke in their life, while men the same age who have two or more risk factors have a 49.5 percent risk; [and] among women, the baseline risk for healthy 45-year-olds was 4.1 percent, while those with two or more risk factors saw that risk rise to 30.7 percent.” Awareness and prevention need to be brought into a more firm diagnosis and health plan for people at risk for health disease, and even those that are not.


            In this article, AFP is showing how the medical field is not maintaining the most up to date  “prevention plans”, if you will, to help people with proper information in regards to their health status. Of course, many people don’t go to regular, in detailed, heart examinations, but a general knowledge that heart disease is becoming more prominent, should be shared; along with not giving a “general 5-10 year” standing for heart disease. Donald Lloyd-Jones gives proven statistics, based on a 250,000+ case study with participants raging from 44-75 year old men and women. Proof is there that an increase in chances for heart disease are there and need to be shared with all in order to remain well informed citizens…at least in a medical sense. 



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