The power of thinking big

Population studies on a vast scale are providing the power to enable accurate risk assessment – and intervention – into cardiovascular disease.

Scientists have learned a great deal about the risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD), the group of conditions that includes heart disease and stroke and which kills one in three people in the UK, through studying the health of large numbers of people. But, as new risk factors emerge, how can clinicians know what to include in an accurate assessment of an individual’s risk of CVD? Moreover, which risk factors are causal, and therefore directions for potential intervention, as opposed to simply being associated with the onset of disease?

The answers are in the numbers. By conducting an analysis on a scale never attempted before, Professor John Danesh and his team at the University of Cambridge’s Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit (CEU) in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care are gaining new insights into the causes of, and potential interventions into, CVD.

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Image: Crowded Credit: Robert Molinarius on flickr


Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge


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