Cholesterol high in those at risk for heart ills
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People who are at highest risk for cardiovascular disease generally have the lowest level of control of high cholesterol levels, investigators report.
“Given the significance of cardiovascular disease as a public health problem in the US and the proven benefits of lipid-lowering therapy for primary prevention,” the researchers comment, “efforts to improve the treatment and control of (high cholesterol) and to eliminate disparities ... should be considered among our highest national healthcare quality improvement priorities.”
Dr. David C. Goff, from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and colleagues evaluated 6704 subjects aged 45 to 84 years who were free of clinical cardiovascular disease at the start of the study between 2000 and 2002.
Overall, 29 percent of the participants had poor lipid profiles. Of these, only 54 percent were taking lipid-lowering drugs, and of those receiving treatment, only 41 percent achieved their target levels, the researchers report in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.
Poor lipid levels were seen in 12 percent of subjects at low risk for cardiovascular disease, 34 percent of those at intermediate risk, and 49 percent of participants at high risk.
More than 80 percent of those in the low-risk group were being treated, compared with only about half of the higher risk groups.
Goff and his associates report that this pattern was similar among ethnic groups, except for Chinese Americans, who were less likely to be affected. However, African Americans and Hispanic Americans were less likely to be treated and controlled than non-Hispanic whites.
This, the team suggests, is likely due to socioeconomic characteristics and healthcare access.
SOURCE: Circulation, February 7, 2006.
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