American Heart Association (AHA) 2024 Updated Lipid Guidelines

The American Heart Association (AHA) has released its 2024 Lipid Guidelines, which introduce significant updates to cardiovascular risk assessment and management. One of the key highlights is the introduction of the PREVENT risk calculator. This new tool is designed to predict a person's long-term risk of cardiovascular events, including heart attack, stroke, and heart failure. Unlike its predecessor, the Pooled Cohort Equation, PREVENT incorporates broader health measures such as kidney function, metabolic diseases, and a newly defined cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome, which includes conditions like Type 2 diabetes and obesity (www.heart.org)​​ (CCJM).

The updated guidelines emphasize personalized care, recommending a multifaceted approach to primary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). They stress the importance of lifestyle changes at all ages and advocate for the use of both statin and non-statin therapies, including ezetimibe and PCSK9 inhibitors, to manage cholesterol levels effectively. For specific patient groups, such as those with severe hypercholesterolemia or diabetes, the guidelines provide detailed treatment recommendations based on individual risk profiles (CCJM)​.

These updates aim to improve early intervention and prevention efforts, particularly for younger adults, by offering risk estimates over a 30-year period rather than just 10 years. This long-term perspective is intended to help healthcare professionals identify earlier opportunities for intervention, ultimately reducing the incidence of cardiovascular events (www.heart.org)​​ (CCJM)