Should I feel safer because of
this?
The study of the medical histories of 6,643 men in 24 towns over a 10-year period and found that only 2.8% died from coronary heart disease, instead of the 4.3% predicted using methods recommended in the framework for heart disease. This represented a 47% overestimation, the researchers said in an article in the British Medical Journal.
Or should I concentrate on the bit lower down in the story, which points out that the risk is much higher when no one knows about it?
The authors also found that 84% of the deaths from heart disease occurred in the 93% of men classified as being at low risk, those who had a less than 30% risk of having a coronary problem within 10 years.
As faras I can see, this is a study which can give comfort only to those hypochondriacs whose doctors have told them there is something wrong with their hearts, thus upping their anxiety levels, which is bad for the heart; the rest of us, blithely confident
