Blood Markers May Foretell Heart Disease; Lifestyle Can Forestall It
New study hints that biomarkers are predictive, but the key to prevention is healthful living
That more detailed assessment may or may not lead your doctor to add a prescription on top of lifestyle advice, since, for example, statins' risks sometimes outweigh their benefits. If a new biomarker is ever developed that truly helps inform that risk-benefit calculation, it will be valuable for those patients in the middle, both to determine whether they need medication and to motivate them to change their own habits, says Burke. But for now, there are bigger problems to tackle: Doctors aren't using the basic predictors of risk that they've got, says Lloyd-Jones, and Americans continue to gain weight and eschew exercise. "We are losing a battle we were poised to win," he says. Addressing those factors should be the priority, says Redberg. "We could stop right now doing any work on biomarkers and put our money into healthy lifestyle research," she says, to reap far bigger health gains.
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