Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG

In yesterday's New York Times, Dr Levy from the Framingham Heart study program said that for a 50-year-old man who does not have diabetes and does not smoke and keeps his cholesterol and blood pressure in the range recommended by national guidelines, over the next 45 years, his chance of ever having a heart attack or symptoms of heart disease, like chest pain, is just 5 percent. The same goes for a 50-year-old woman with those risk factors under control. Her chance of symptomatic heart disease is 8 percent, slightly higher than the man’s because women live longer. Yet, it is hard to change people's behaviors and reduce the phenomenal cost of care in later life.