Cardiovascular guidelines: separate career may help attenuate controversy

The release of recent guidelines for high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes in the U.S. has been accompanied by great noise and concerns, both in the academic circuits and the lay press. For persons aged 40 to75 years, with LDL cholesterol levels between 70–189 mg/dL and 7.5% or higher estimated 10-year risk, the peril of a global “statinization” has been advocated, predicting a 70% increase of statin use in this otherwise healthy people. A minority of the Eight Joint National Committee panel disagreed with the recommendation to increase the target systolic blood pressure from 140 to 150 mmHg in persons aged 60 years or older without diabetes mellitus or chronic kidney disease. The 2013-American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists algorithm and consensus statement on diabetes has been criticized with particular concerns about transparency, conflicts of interest, group composition, and the abundant use of personal judgment and experience instead of rigorous methodology. Separate careers for experts who collect evidence from persons who write the actual guidelines seems a good opportunity in order to attenuate the noise associated with release of new guidelines, especially those that counter prior practice.