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Heart failure: how can we prevent the epidemic?
Author(s) -
Campbell Duncan J
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2003.tb05620.x
Subject(s) - heart failure , medicine , overweight , population , incidence (geometry) , myocardial infarction , obesity , environmental health , public health , heart disease , disease , gerontology , intensive care medicine , physics , nursing , optics
Heart failure prevalence is increasing because of the ageing of the population and the longer survival of people experiencing myocardial infarction and heart failure. The lifetime risk of developing heart failure in Western countries is about 20%. The increasing prevalence of overweight, obesity and diabetes is likely to accelerate heart failure incidence. While there have been major advances in treating heart failure, a preventive approach promises greater benefit to a larger proportion of the community. The medical strategy for heart failure prevention, based on calculation of individual risk, is focused on the minority of individuals who exceed an arbitrary risk threshold. A public health strategy targeting the whole population offers a greater prospect of reducing the incidence of heart failure and other cardiovascular disease. A multitiered approach, encompassing environmental determinants of lifestyle, legislation, and education about healthy lifestyles throughout life, in addition to aggressive control of risk factors in high‐risk individuals, is likely to have the greatest impact.