Heart attacks: exploring new preventive strategies.

Ischaemic heart disease is an emerging public health problem in Sri Lanka. Implementation of programs for lifetime control and prevention of established coronary risk factors such as smoking, hyperlipidaemia, hypertension, diabetes and hereditary risk are costly and unaffordable in countries such as Sri Lanka with limited resources for health care. Other potential risk factors which are less expensive with regard to prevention require investigation. This paper summarises several studies done over the past decade at Peradeniya, to investigate three such potential coronary risk factors of IHD, namely homocysteine, vitamin C and dietary fat.