Medicine Grand Rounds Craige Lecture, Valentin Fuster “Importance of Primordial Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases”

Whereas primary prevention seeks to forestall development of disease in individuals with elevated risk, primordial prevention seeks to preempt the development of risk factors. Health behaviors–characterized as “lifestyle” factors–are key interventional targets in primordial prevention of cardiovascular disease. Although lifestyle modification programs can be instrumental in reaching public health goals, maintaining cardiovascular health should not be a matter solely of willpower. Ideally, structural and social forces should make healthy lifestyles the default option.

Dr. Valentin Fuster serves The Mount Sinai Medical Hospital as Physician-in-Chief, as well as Director of Mount Sinai Heart, the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute and the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Cardiovascular Health. He is also the Richard Gorlin, MD/Heart Research Foundation Professor, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Fuster was the President of Science and is now the General Director of the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III in Madrid, Spain and also and Chairman of the Science for Health and Education Foundation.

Among his many achievements, it is noteworthy that Dr. Fuster is the only cardiologist to have received the highest awards for research from the four leading cardiovascular organizations: the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, the European Society of Cardiology and the Interamerican Society of Cardiology.