Essentials of healthy eating: a guide.

Enough solid evidence now exists to offer women several fundamental strategies for healthy eating. They include emphasizing healthful unsaturated fats, whole grains, good protein "packages," and fruits and vegetables; limiting consumption of trans and saturated fats, highly refined grains, and sugary beverages; and taking a multivitamin with folic acid and extra vitamin D as a nutritional safety net. A diet based on these principles is healthy through virtually all life stages, from young adulthood through planning for pregnancy, pregnancy, and on into old age.

ALLHAT-LLT: questions, questions, and more questions (and some answers).

The Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial--Lipid Lowering Trial (ALLHAT-LLT) compared 40 mg/d of pravastatin with usual care among 10,355 men and women aged 55 years or older with stage 1 or 2 hypertension, at least one additional coronary heart disease risk factor, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels of 120 to 189 mg/dL. After a mean of 4.8 years of treatment and follow-up, the difference in total cholesterol between the two arms was 9.6%, whereas in a small, nonrandomized subsample, the LDL cholesterol differential was 16.7%. No differences were observed between the pravastatin and usual-care groups with respect to all-cause mortality, cardiovascular deaths, noncardiovascular deaths, and a composite endpoint of fatal coronary heart disease plus nonfatal myocardial infarction. Despite these null findings, the results of ALLHAT-LLT are not inconsistent with previous trials because of the very small lipid differences in the two arms. This indirectly supports the hypothesis that LDL cholesterol lowering is central to the cardiovascular benefits associated with statin therapy, with greater clinical impacts observed when there are greater differences between treatment and control arms. ALLHAT-LLT underscores the difficulty of conducting an open-label trial in an era of rapidly changing professional and public understanding of the possible benefits of lipid-lowering therapy and highlights the substantial gap between actual care in clinical practice and optimal care based on the best knowledge from randomized clinical trials.

The escalating pandemics of obesity and sedentary lifestyle. A call to action for clinicians.

Obesity and sedentary lifestyle are escalating national and global epidemics that warrant increased attention by physicians and other health care professionals. These intricately linked conditions are responsible for an enormous burden of chronic disease, impaired physical function and quality of life, at least 300,000 premature deaths, and at least $90 billion in direct health care costs annually in the United States alone. Clinicians are on the front line of combat, yet these conditions receive minimal attention during a typical office visit. Clinicians often feel overwhelmed by these challenges and point to an absence of clear guidelines and practice tools, minimal training in behavior modification strategies, and lack of time as reasons for failing to confront them. This report provides a "call to action" with step-by-step guidelines specifically directed at the pivotal role of physicians and other health care professionals in curbing these dangerous epidemics. This blueprint for action, which requires only a few minutes of a clinician's time to implement, will facilitate more effective intervention related to obesity and inactivity and should favorably impact public health.

Obesity, diabetes, and coronary risk in women.

The latter half of the twentieth century has witnessed rapid advances in cardiovascular epidemiology and medicine. Concurrently, secular trends in lifestyle practices and general improvements in standards of living have resulted in several alarming trends for cardiovascular disease prevention and health promotion. The adoption of unhealthy dietary patterns, growing socio-economic and racial disparities in chronic disease prevalence, low levels of physical activity, and other as yet unidentified genetic and environmental determinants have led to burgeoning rates of both pediatric and adult obesity and diabetes mellitus. Women appear to be at particular risk as the gender advantage for coronary heart disease (CHD) is counterbalanced by an increased incidence of obesity and diabetes. In order to further examine these complex associations, we review the available epidemiological data regarding the impact of obesity and diabetes on cardiovascular health in women.

Reducing the global burden of cardiovascular disease: the role of risk factors.

During the last century, cardiovascular disease (CVD) has burgeoned from a relatively minor disease worldwide to a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. By 2020 it is projected that CVD will surpass infectious disease as the worlds leading cause of death and disability. Some of this increase in the relative importance of CVD is due to improved public health measures and medical care leading to longer life spans and reduced mortality from other causes. However, a substantial portion of the increasing global impact of CVD is attributable to economic, social, and cultural changes that have led to increases in risk factors for CVD. These changes are most pronounced in the countries comprising the developing world. Because the majority of the worlds population lives in the developing world, the increasing rate of CVD in these countries is the driving force behind the continuing dramatic worldwide increase in CVD. In order to blunt the impact of the global explosion in CVD, it will be crucial to attempt to understand and reduce the global increase in CVD risk factors. In this review, the authors describe the changes responsible for the global epidemic of CVD, with particular attention to the contributions of established risk factors and their impact on the growth of CVD among the worlds various economic sectors. The authors outline the major challenges facing countries in different economic sectors, and discuss ways to address these challenges with the goal of reducing the global burden of CVD.

Migraine and coronary heart disease in women and men.

OBJECTIVE: We evaluated migraine as an independent risk factor for subsequent coronary heart disease (CHD) events among women in the Women's Health Study (WHS) and men in the Physicians' Health Study (PHS). BACKGROUND: Although several studies have suggested that migraine is associated with increased risk of stroke, there are few and conflicting data on whether migraine predicts risk of future CHD events. METHODS: The WHS is an ongoing randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of low-dose aspirin and vitamin E in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer in 39876 women health professionals aged > or =45 years in 1993, and the PHS is a completed randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of aspirin and beta-carotene in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer in 22071 men physicians aged 40 to 84 years in 1982. Primary endpoints were defined as major CHD (nonfatal myocardial infarction [MI] or fatal CHD) and total CHD (major CHD plus angina and coronary revascularization). RESULTS: After adjusting for other CHD risk factors, female health professionals and male physicians reporting migraine were not at increased risk for subsequent major CHD (women: relative risk [RR], 0.83; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.53 to 1.29; men: RR, 1.02; 95% Cl, 0.79 to 1.31) or total CHD (women: RR, 1.01; 95% Cl, 0.76 to 1.34; men: RR, 0.98; 95% Cl, 0.82 to 1.18). When considered separately, there was also no increase in risk of MI or angina. CONCLUSION: These prospective data suggest that migraine is not associated with increased risk of subsequent CHD events in women or men.