ESC warns the public to be aware of risk factors following Philippe Seguin's death

"Following the sudden death yesterday of the former French government minister Philippe Séguin, who suffered a fatal heart attack, aged 66, the European Society of Cardiology is warning the public of the dangers of leaving risk factors such as hyperlipidemia, hypertension or diabetes untreated. Other major risk factors for coronary artery disease are smoking or being overweight. ESC spokesperson Professor Nicolas Danchin, an expert in Acute Cardiac Care, explains: 'You can have a heart attack leading to sudden death without having any symptoms before and so as you have had no symptoms you can’t really prevent it or prepare for that eventuality. The only way to try to avoid that is to have a proper lifestyle with regular exercise and to have a proper diet. If you are aware of risk factors such as diabetes or hypertension, then you should treat these.' Although in today's society progress has been made in the control of some risk factors, such as smoking, hyperlipidemia and hypertension; other risk factors such as overweight, obesity and diabetes are still increasing in alarming proportions"