Cardiovascular medicine – turning people into patients: has modern medicine gone too far?

Abstract

This hot topic meeting addressed the burning issue of the potential power of the medical profession and others to create disease out of cardiovascular risk factors. Cardiovascular disease remains the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in most of the western world, and in Scotland in particular. Clearly the reduction of cardiovascular disease is a critical goal but a side-effect of this can be the transformation of fit, healthy people with an increase in risk, into unwell patients labeled as suffering from disease. To prevent unnecessarily turning people into patients we need to understand the epidemiology of risk factors and have clear mechanisms for educating healthcare providers and the public. These topics were the focus of this well attended and stimulating meeting