Cholesterol: an important but relatively overemphasized risk factor for ischemic heart disease

Educational messages directed at the public to prevent ischemic heart disease (IHD) are generally based on cholesterol-reduction. However, IHD has multiple risk factors, and a study was performed to help determine whether or not the allocation of educational messages among risk factors is appropriate: The severity of high cholesterol was compared with the severity of multiple other major risk factors for IHD, and the beneficial effects of cholesterol-reduction was compared with the benefits of multiple other major preventative factors for IHD. It was found that high cholesterol levels, and multiple other risk factors, generally give a risk of around 2.0 for developing IHD. Cholesterol-reduction by statins, and multiple other factors which prevent IHD, generally reduce the risk of IHD by about 30-40%. It was concluded that the allocation of educational messages to reduce the incidence of IHD should significantly increase discussions of non-cholesterol risk and preventative factors.