Hypertension is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular death. Indeed, data from the Heart and Stroke Statistics showed that 45% of the cardiovascular mortality is potentially attributed to hypertension. This worrying scenario has not been changing in the last decades despite the availability of non-pharmacological interventions and the development of several anti-hypertensive classes that effectively contributed to blood pressure (BP) control. – The reasons for our low effectiveness in controlling BP at the population level are multiple, including the […]

Obesity and overweight are considered a global public health problem and contribute strongly to several chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus (DM), cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and cancer. More than 1.9 billion overweight adults are estimated, representing 39% of the world population, and 13% of obese adults. The World Health Organization estimated, for 2019, more than 38 million overweight or obese children under the age of five. Childhood obesity is associated with higher chances of premature death, increased […]

Diseases of the circulatory system predominate as the leading cause of death in the world; among cardiovascular diseases, ischemic heart diseases are the first group of causes. Ischemic heart disease (IHD) is the leading global cause of death, accounting for more than 9 million deaths in 2016, according to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO). Mortality from IHD in Western countries has decreased dramatically over the past few decades, with a greater focus on primary prevention and better diagnosis […]

Since the first publication of Framingham Risk Score in late 1950’s, derived from data obtained in an observational study to investigate cardiovascular risk factors, several other risk scores were created around the globe and they have been increasingly popular particularly in the last 10-20 years in cardiovascular medicine. The objective of a risk score is to individualize the risk for an individual patient with the use of functional equations based on multiple risk factors. Patients at high risk should be […]