Medical student response to a class lipid-screening project

Risk factors for coronary artery disease in 124 Jerusalem medical students

As part of an epidemiologic teaching exercise, we studied coronary risk factors in two consecutive classes of Jerusalem medical students (n = 124) and calculated a summary coronary risk score for each student. Men were at higher risk than women because of greater body mass, higher blood pressure and more cigarette smoking. Married males were at lower risk than single males because they had lower cholesterol levels and smoked less. Married and single females were at equal risk. Jerusalem students smoked more than most groups of American medical students and less than their European counterparts. There is reason to believe that an exercise of this kind may result in risk-reducing behavior on the part of high-risk students.