Stephen Raskin

Picture This Stephen Raskin

Every 37 seconds an American dies of cardiovascular disease. For nearly half of its victims atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease shows up suddenly with a heart attack or sudden death - as if appearing out of a fog. This is the disease that kills most men and women in the United States and knowing about it earlier makes common sense.

Atherosclerosis starts silently in our teen years, and often tracks with poor lifestyle, and poorly controlled risk factors including poor nutrition, abnormal lipids, high BP, diabetes, tobacco use, sedentary behavior, and importantly, genetic predisposition. The development and progression of coronary atherosclerosis is a silent process and each year nearly 150,000 Americans present with fatal myocardial infarction as the one and only manifestation of this indolent disease.

It is obvious that our current methods to identify and treat atherosclerotic vascular disease fail too many.