Doctors May Be Failing To Properly Control Cholesterol
As many as half of patients who are at risk for heart attack or stroke may be getting incorrect information about cutting cholesterol from their doctors, claims a group of German scientists.
Doctors could eliminate 5- to 8-percent of heart disease related deaths over a decade-long period if they did a better job following guidelines meant to lower cholesterol in their patients, claims lead researcher Heribert Schunkert, a cardiologist at the University Clinic of Schleswig Holstein in Lubeck.
Schunkert polled over 25,000 patients and 900 doctors in his research, and found that 45-percent of men and 51-percent of women were given incorrect low-density lipoprotein (LDL) targets by their practitioners. LDL is a fatty substance that deposits cholesterol on artery walls.
According to Schunkert, guidelines instructing medical professionals on how much a patient’s LDL cholesterol levels should be lowered aren’t clear enough.
As he wrote in the European Heart Journal, which published the study’s findings, "Efforts should be made to make guidelines simpler and easier to understand and follow, instruments to identify high-risk patients more easily should be developed, and special attention should be paid to women."
In the United States, a total cholesterol level of 200 milligrams per deciliter of blood (mg/dL) of less is considered optimal, according to the Mayo Clinic website, while anything under 240 mg/dL is borderline high and any amount above that level is considered high.
LDL levels for those with a high risk of heart disease should be 70 mg/dL, while for all others, LDL levels below 100 mg/dL are considered optimal and those below 130mg/dL are considered acceptable.
"We hope that the data from our study will remind physicians of the need to observe relevant guidelines to calculate individually every patient’s target value, so that they can deliver the best possible care to all their patients," Schunkert said in a March 11 press release.
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