Relationship of lipid disorders to coronary heart disease.

Broad-based population studies have recently provided important new evidence relative to the independent coronary heart disease, stroke, and hypertension risk factors and their interrelationships, "tracking," familial aggregation, and contribution to coronary heart disease morbidity and mortality. Therapeutic studies designed to reduce both total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in patients with coronary heart disease unequivocally show that morbidity and mortality rates can be sharply reduced by risk-factor intervention. Over the past two decades, there has been a dramatic decrease in the dietary intake of cholesterol and an increase in polyunsaturated fat in the American population, as well as increased adult participation in aerobic exercise programs. Over the same time period, a dramatic decrease in coronary heart disease mortality rates has been recorded in the United States.