News:Popular Health Risk Tools Don’t Find Heart Disease

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Traditional risk assessment tools like the Framingham and National Cholesterol Education Program, NCEP, do not accurately predict coronary heart disease. In a Yale University School of Medicine study of 1,654 patients, some with no history of the disease and some taking statins, doctors used the tests to calculate the patients’ risk of heart disease. Researchers compared those results to the amount of plaque actually found in the patients’ arteries. The results: One in five patients thought to need statins before the test actually didn’t. And one in four taking statins had no plaque whatsoever.(ScienceDaily)
Looking at cholesterol levels may not be any better. In another study, researchers found that nearly 75% of people hospitalized for heart attacks had normal levels of LDL cholesterol, the “bad” kind. The study’s author contends current cholesterol level guidelines should be changed, a topic the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute is likely to look into soon.(HealthDay News by Ed Edelson)