Sad but true: Everybody dies

Warning: Your risk of dying is 100 percent. And if you live long enough, your chances of getting cardiovascular disease are rather high.

That was the not-so-stunning conclusion of a study by John T. Wilkins, M.D., M.S., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and colleagues that appears in this week s issue of JAMA. Using data from five community-based cohorts, researchers calculated an individual s overall lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease, finding that a 55-year-old male nonsmoker with normal blood pressure, normal cholesterol and without diabetes still had a 40 percent chance of getting cardiovascular disease through age 85. For women with similar risk factor status, the chances are 30 percent.

ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross says the study is silly, because we all have to die of something sometime. If we eliminate all cardiovascular disease, death rates from cancer will go up, I predict.

They also came up with the astounding conclusion that people without risk factors live longer than people with risk factors, added ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom. He adds, Go figure. What s next? People who don t hit themselves on the head with a sledgehammer have fewer headaches than those who do?

It s good to know that risk factors mean something. Science at work, declared ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava.