Research Studies that discovered the causes of blockages
In 1948, after the death of their World War II winner president (Roosevelt) from heart failure the US Government initiated the biggest heart research study of the century called Framingham Heart Study. In the last 72 years this extensive study continuously published results of more than 3000 research papers on the causes of heart disease and its causative treatment. The findings of this study over the last 70 years changed the concept of heart disease treatment. It is the most important study which proved that Cholesterol and Triglycerides are the fats which lead to the fatty deposits and they must be controlled if we want to win over the pandemic of heart disease which killed more than 50% of people in 1950s. It was their efforts which proved that smoking/tobacco, high BP, Diabetes, obesity increase the possibility of heart attacks. They only showed that exercise, stress management, increased intake of fruits, vegetables protect heart patients from getting heart attack. They only coined the term Risk factors – which are universally accepted. Framingham Heart Study is the biggest ever research study in the history of medical science.
Apart from Framingham Heart Study – MRFIT (Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial) study, Lipid Research Clinic studies in USA; White Hall Study in UK; North Karelia study in Finland; WHO (World Health Organization) conducted MONICA trial; Inter heart study from Canada, Lifestyle Heart Trail in Sanfrancisco are some of the distinct studies which pointed out the real reasons of heart disease, heart attack and guided about how to prevent and reverse heart disease. If we want to just mention all the more than 1000 studies conducted on the very important heart disease it will take several pages.
By implementing the findings of these studies the developed countries of Europe, USA and Japan had been able to cut down their heart attack deaths starting from 1970s. By the year 2000 they had been able to almost reduce the heart attack deaths from 50% to 25%. But it has been seen that heart disease is still increasing in the middle income, low income developing countries especially in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Africa, South America and Middle East.