Time to end the mixed- and often incorrect-messages about prevention and treatment of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease

Medical research has revealed enough about the causes and prevention of heart attacks that they could be nearly eliminated. Yet nearly 16 million Americans are living with coronary heart disease, and nearly half a million die from it each year. It's not that prevention doesn't work, and it's not that once someone has a heart attack there is little to be done. In fact, said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health, age-adjusted death rates for heart disease dropped precipitously in the past few decades and prevention and better treatment are major reasons why. But the concern, Dr. Nabel and others say, is that much more could be done. In many ways, scientists' hard-won and increasingly detailed understanding of what causes heart disease and what to do for it often goes unknown or ignored (1).