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Low Risk—and the "No More Than 50%" Myth/Dogma
Jeremiah Stamler, MD
Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(6):537-539.
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Medical myths/dogmas die hard. Researchers creating a new body of knowledge for prevention and control of the coronary heart disease–cardiovascular disease (CHD-CVD) epidemic had to disprove and displace the following successive myths/dogmas (among others):
- In the early 1950s: severe atherosclerosis is part of normal aging, hence inevitable, and nothing can be done about it.1
- Then: serum cholesterol level and blood pressure (BP) normally rise with age during adulthood.
- Normal systolic BP is 100 mm Hg plus your age; normal serum cholesterol level is as much as 300 mg/dL (7.8 mmol/L). (Spare us normalcy!)
- Most high BP is essential hypertension of unknown cause.
- Treatment to lower high BP only gets at a symptom (not at the underlying disease) and can do harm by lowering the blood flow to the heart and brain, so therapeutic nihilism and judicious neglect are right.
- Later: systolic BP of 140 to 159 and . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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