More than half of all cardiovascular diseases worldwide have been found to be directly connected to five classic cardiovascular disease risk factors, with high blood pressure being the most significant factor related to heart attacks and strokes. Dr. Christie Ballantyne, professor of medicine, and Dr. Vijay Nambi, associate professor of medicine, both with Baylor College of Medicine, are co-authors along with a large group of scientists who make up the Global Cardiovascular Risk Consortium who recently published these findings in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The consortium, under the leadership of the University of Heart & Vascular Center of the Medical Center of Hamburg-Eppendorf and the German Center for Cardiovascular Research, used data from 112 studies consisting of 1.5 million people from 34 different countries.
The group reports that two conclusions can be made from these findings: The first, that more than half of all heart attacks and strokes can be prevented by understanding, treating or preventing the five classic risk factors: weight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking and diabetes. The second, that the other half of heart attacks and strokes cannot be explained with these risk factors and more work and research is needed to find additional causes.
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