[The successes and failures in the primary prevention of coronary disease]

The modification of major behavioural and environmental risk factors has helped reduce coronary heart disease. It seems, however, that prevention results were not so good as expected. It is assumed that the major cause of this apparent unsuccessful data is basically due to world population ageing, as it is known that coronary heart disease is much more frequent in older people. Therefore the current life expectancy shows that the preventive measures have indeed been successful. From the analysis and discussion of the preventive epidemiological recommendations and the identification of new risk factors, the Authors suggest new strategies for health promotion and particularly for coronary heart disease reduction.