The years subsequent to world war II saw increasing evidence of the importance of arteriosclerosis and its complications as the leading cause of death in the United States. Scientific studies in the laboratroy, clinic, and in population grups pointe to the contributing roles of diet, hypertension, cigarette smoking, diabetes, and other risk factors in the genesis of coronary heart disease.
Yet. convincing demonstrations of the favorable effect of risk modification on chd morbidity and mortality were not at hand by the 1960s.
It was in 1970 when the national Heart and Lung Institue conweyed a Task force to conduct a nationwide multiple risk factor intervention trial in the United States.
The multiple risk factor intervention trial(mr-fit) started in 1972 with participation of 28 institutions throughout the country was the one and the first report supporting the association of intervention and CHD mortality was appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association September 1982 with some explanation about rather disappointing result in terms of reduction of mortality in the intervention group.
The second analysis of the mortality rates after 10.5 yeras for participant in the MRFIT was reported in the same journal in 1990 and concluded that the intervention was successful.
However, thes study results were criticiaed not only by other researchere but also by the public.
this paper summarizes the results of two major mrfit mortality analysis and reviews the positive and negative responses to the results.
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