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Cholesterol Reduction and Health Policy: Taking Clinical Science to Patient Care
- ARNOLD M. EPSTEIN, M.D., M.A.; and
- GERRY OSTER, Ph.D
- Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Institute for Health Research, a joint program of Harvard Community Health Plan and Harvard University Boston, Massachusetts
- Policy Analysis Incorporated, Brookline Massachusetts
Excerpt
For more than a decade, the relationship between cholesterol and coronary heart disease has been a subject of controversy in the medical community. Whereas numerous epidemiologic studies have documented a consistent, strong, and independent association between cholesterol levels and the incidence of coronary heart disease, evidence that lowering cholesterol levels can reduce coronary risk has been more limited. Hence, although many have been convinced of the clinical value of interventions to reduce cholesterol, others have remained more skeptical of the science informing such efforts. The debate has been intense, in part, because "heart" disease has a special place in the
Acknowledgments
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Dr. Epstein is a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Faculty Scholar in General Internal Medicine.
