Leading cardiovascular disease experts attending the annual meeting of the European Society of Hypertension in June 2005, have issued a “call to action”, urging members of the worldwide medical community to shift treatment practices for cardiovascular disease (CVD) away from treating individual risk factors in isolation to a comprehensive strategy focusing on the whole patient.
Clinicians urged to rethink CVD treatment
The announcement was prompted by mounting evidence from epidemiological and clinical trials, which has shown that CVD is a comprehensive, multi-factorial disease most often caused by a clustering of easily measured and modifiable risk factors, including hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes mellitus, smoking, and obesity, as well as uncontrollable risk factors such as age, gender, and family history of heart disease. Yet according to the World Health Organization, clinical practices worldwide continue to focus on treating individual risk factors in isolation rather than on a patient’s total risk.
