ABSTRACT
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has become such a global scourge that by 1990 it was clear that coronary heart disease (CHD) (with 6.3 million deaths) and cerebrovascular disease (with 4.4 million deaths) were the two leading causes of death worldwide.1 The situation has been particularly acute in the developed societies of Western Europe and North America where the prevalence of the main manifestations of CVD has been of epidemic proportions for some decades (see Table 4.1).
