Lowering CAD risk

NEW YORK, July 6 (Praxis Press) Lifestyle-related risk factors for coronary artery disease (CAD) include smoking, being overweight, lack of exercise and poor diet. Investigators from the Nurses Health Study, which involved 84 129 women, looked at the impact of these risk factors considered together. Each risk factor independently and significantly predicted risk, but many were correlated. Only 3% of the women studied had none of the risk factors, and their relative risk of coronary events was 0.17 as compared with all the other women. Of the coronary events in the study cohort, 82% could be attributed to lack of adherence to these lifestyle-related guidelines.