Heart Attacks: Gone with the Century?

The authors are professors of molecular genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX, USA. This issue of Science highlights the progress and promise of research in cardiovascular disease, the most frequent cause of death in men over age 35 and women over age 65 in the United States. Heart attacks were recognized as a public health problem only in this century. They are likely to lose this notoriety early in the next. The reason? Four decades of progress in understanding cholesterol and the lipoproteins that carry it in blood plasma.