primary prevention

Primary prevention is heading off the first heart attack or stroke before it ever happens — acting while the arteries are still relatively healthy. The metaphor is fixing a roof before it leaks: you treat the conditions and habits that quietly build risk, in someone who currently has no diagnosed cardiovascular disease.

It blends lifestyle measures (not smoking, regular activity, a heart-healthy diet, healthy weight) with medical treatment of risk factors such as high blood pressure, dyslipidemia and diabetes when overall risk is high enough to justify them. Because the person feels well, decisions hinge on estimated future risk — often from a risk score — weighed against the burden and side effects of long-term treatment.

The trade-off is real: treating many well people to prevent events in a few means most individuals take medication that, statistically, they may never have needed. That is why primary-prevention choices, especially for statins or aspirin, are individualised and shared between patient and clinician rather than automatic.