James McCormack PharmD, Aseem Malhotra MRCP and David Newman MD

National organisations such as NICE or American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) regularly release cardiovascular disease (CVD) guidelines that recommend lifestyle and medication interventions along with treatment thresholds based either on risk factors or calculated CVD risks. The release of these recommendations predictably leads to intense debate from healthcare organisations, government, industry, and clinicians on whether or not the recommendations are reasonable. At one extreme the recommendations are typically pilloried as being sufficiently weak to cost lives, while others insist the guidelines have threatened public health through over-medication.
Read more… Challenging treatment thresholds