During the past three decades, the death rate from coronary heart disease (CHD) has dropped by more than half. Researchers reporting in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology credit efforts to reduce risk factors as having had a crucial role in helping to decrease the death rate.

Researchers used a computer simulation model to estimate the effect of investments made to reduce coronary risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and smoking among people who were between 35 and 84 years old between 1981 and 1990. Because the benefits of stopping smoking, lowering cholesterol, and other risk reductions often don't show up until years later, the researchers also examined the impact these changes would have on the future incidence, prevalence, mortality, and costs of CHD.

They concluded that efforts to reduce coronary risk factors pay off, with both lives and dollars saved. They found that changes in risk factors reduced deaths from CHD by 430,000 and overall deaths by 740,000 during the decade studied. Projecting their findings into the future, they predicted that the number of lives saved would increase to 3.6 million for CHD deaths and 1.2 million deaths overall for the period between 1981 and 2015.

The journal's editors noted that these results are "a strong endorsement for efforts and investments toward risk-factor reduction in the U.S. over the last 20 years."