Table 2.

Benefits of therapies

THERAPY	ESTIMATED BENEFIT (RELATIVE RISK REDUCTION), %	EXAMPLE IF BASELINE RISK ESTIMATED AT 20% OVER 10 Y
THERAPY	ESTIMATED BENEFIT (RELATIVE RISK REDUCTION), %	ABSOLUTE RISK REDUCTION, %	NUMBER NEEDED TO TREAT	NEW RISK ESTIMATE, %
Smoking cessation	Recalculate risk without smoking	9^*	12^*	11^*
Mediterranean diet	30	6	17	14
Exercise	30	6	17	14
Statin intensity
• Low	25	5	20	15
• Moderate	30	6	17	14
• High	35	7	15	13
Acetylsalicylic acid	12	2	50	18

↵* Example used a male smoker, 53 y old, with total cholesterol level of 5.0 mmol/L, high-density lipoprotein level of 1.2 mmol/L, and systolic blood pressure of 128 mm Hg; estimated risk from the Framingham risk assessment tool (from http://cvrisk.mvm.ed.ac.uk/calculator/calc.asp and http://bestsciencemedicine.com/chd/calc2.html) to attain a 20% risk over 10 y.
Adapted from Toward Optimized Practice.¹⁶