Risk factors for cardiovascular disease among women

The studies of risk factors for cardiovascular disease among women have changed over the past few years because of: (1) the further development and evaluation of noninvasive methods of measuring subclinical atherosclerosis, (2) the availability of potent drugs that substantially lower LDL-cholesterol levels, (3) improvement in the methods of measuring factors related to clotting and fibrinolysis and inflammation, (4) better methods of quantifying obesity, fatness and body fat distribution, (5) increasing interest in the interrelationship between endogenous sex-steroid hormone metabolism, risk factors and disease, (6) the relationship of new metabolic risk factors and cardiovascular disease and (7) the use of molecular genetics to identify specific genotypes of risk factors.