What’s involved in lowering your risk for cardiovascular disease? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Cholesterol management, per new guidelines from the American College of Cardiology, is just one aspect of measures you can take to lower your risk for cardiovascular disease, the number one cause of death. Roger Blumenthal, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins and chair of the committee that wrote the new guidelines, describes a holistic approach.

Blumenthal: We like to think about things in an ABC approach, so A stands for assessment of risk and now with this prevent estimator we can calculate what a person's 10 year risk but also their long term they're 20 to 30 year risk. And then B stands for blood pressure and normal blood pressure is less than 130 / 80. C stands for cholesterol and we have some great new guidelines that emphasize the importance of lifestyle but give good ideas about when we can try to improve a person's risk followed by using medication. C also stands for cigarette cessation.               :33

D is for diet and weight, and diabetes prevention, while E is for exercise. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.