The 2013 American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines for cholesterol management and for cardiovascular risk stratification: a reappraisal.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA), in collaboration with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), have recently released a set of four important guideline documents that provide recommendations for blood cholesterol management in adults, management of overweight and obesity, life-style modifications to reduce cardiovascular (CV) risk and the approach to CV risk stratification.1–4 Of these, the cholesterol guidelines were perhaps the most awaited, given the significant improvements that have taken place in our understanding of lipid management over the past decade, since the previous NHLBI guidelines (adult treatment panel III) were last updated.5 However, the new recommendations depart heavily from the prevailing concepts in lipid management and in this process have sparked off an intense debate about their rationale and practicality. Therefore, a critical review of these guidelines, along with the related document on CV risk stratification, is warranted before we embark on the task to incorporate them in to our clinical practice.