Prevention of coronary heart disease: some results from the Oslo secondary and primary intervention studies

Abstract

The increase in cardiac disease [fatal and nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), and sudden death] in the post-war years in Norway, after the much lower incidence during the war, that coincided with high and low fat intakes, respectively, led to a trial in Oslo to determine whether lowering dietary fat intake would favorably influence occurrence of coronary heart disease (CHD). Dietary modification, which lowered serum cholesterol of men who had suffered a first-time MI, showed decreased reinfarction incidence and cardiac deaths as compared with a comparable group of controls. Another study of normotensive high-risk men (on the basis of serum cholesterol and smoking habits) showed that dietetic measures can be useful in preventing CHD.