Joint european recommendations for prevention of coronary heart disease. Steps to implementation in clinical practice

Experience of cardiac rehabilitation after coronary artery surgery: effects on health and risk factors

“…Tobacco smoking habit was recorded. Body mass index, blood pressure and cholesterol levels were measured according to standard procedures [9]. Patients were asked to rate the severity of angina and breathlessness using two visual analogue seven point scales which are similar to scales used in other studies [10,11].…”

“…The percentage of patients with CAD risk factors that exceeded target levels (smoking, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, obesity in accordance with current UK guidelines [9]) in attenders and non-attenders at pre-operative and post-operative assessments are presented in Table 2. Smoking both pre-and post-operatively was more frequent in non-attenders (p = 0.002 and 0.0019 respectively).…”

The role of serum lipids in exudative diabetic maculopathy: is there a place for lipid lowering therapy?

“…Whilst primary prevention studies on macrovascular disease specifically in diabetic patients are ongoing, the recently published Joint British Societies guidelines suggest that lipid lowering therapy should be instituted on the basis of Coronary Heart Disease Risk, calculated using the Framingham Equation. 48 The presence of exudative maculopathy is not currently an indication for institution of lipid lowering therapy. It is not known whether exudative maculopathy may improve with the use of a statin or a fibrate, even in the absence of significant dyslipidaemia, and whether this improvement leads to improved visual outcome.…”

A randomised placebo controlled trial of the effects of tibolone on blood pressure and lipids in hypertensive women

“…In the most current model of cardiac risk derived from the Framingham study, incorporating TC, HDL-C and other risk factors, tibolone increased cardiac risk by about 18% but this was not statistically significant and in this population represented a rise in absolute risk of 2.6%. 38 A fall in Lp(a) with tibolone has been noted but this was not reproduced here. 35 The measurement of Lp(a) is difficult to standardise and subject to wide variation so both studies are likely to be underpowered.…”