Managing risk factors – the old offenders
Diet
An update on diet and cardiovascular disease was given by Professor Kay Tee Khaw (University of Cambridge). A surprise recent finding has been that increased body mass index (BMI) trends do not directly correlate with cardiovascular mortality, particularly in Mediterranean countries (figure 1).
Figure 1. Body mass index and associated coronary heart disease in Europe. Panel a) body mass index; panel b) coronary heart disease
This gives rise to the question: is diet a key moderating factor in the relationship between BMI and cardiovascular mortality? The PREDIMED (Effects of the Mediterranean Di