Key takeaways
- An international study assessed cardiovascular risk factors, awareness and treatment among more than 1,300 healthcare professionals attending ESC Congress 2025.
- Healthcare professionals had a generally healthier cardiovascular risk profile than matched individuals from the general population, but were no better at recognising several of their own cardiovascular risk factors.
- Important gaps were identified in the use of guideline-recommended preventive treatments, although healthcare professionals who received treatment were more likely to achieve certain treatment targets.
Munich, Germany – 30 August 2026: Healthcare professionals may have a lower burden of cardiovascular risk than the general population, but important gaps remain in the recognition and treatment of their own risk factors, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2026 and published in the European Heart Journal.[1]
Cardiovascular disease remains the world’s leading cause of death, and more than half of the global burden is attributable to five modifiable risk factors: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, excess body weight and smoking. Healthcare professionals play a central role in identifying and treating these risk factors in their patients, but less is known about how effectively they manage their own cardiovascular health.
“Our findings show that healthcare professionals are not immune to the same barriers that limit cardiovascular prevention in the general population,” said first author Florian A. Wenzl of the Center for Molecular Cardiology at the University of Zurich and the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford.
The study assessed more than 1,300 healthcare professionals attending ESC Congress 2025. Participants underwent a comprehensive cardiovascular health assessment, including blood tests and blood pressure measurement, with carotid ultrasonography performed in a subgroup. Their results were compared with age- and sex-matched individuals from the general population.
Excess body weight was the most common cardiovascular risk factor among healthcare professionals, affecting 46.8%, followed by hypertension (23.2%) and high cholesterol (22.7%).
Subclinical atherosclerosis, defined as early, symptomless plaque build-up in the arteries, was detected in approximately one in five healthcare professionals without known cardiovascular disease. This was notably lower than among matched controls from the general population.
However, healthcare professionals were no better than the general population at recognising several of their own cardiovascular risk factors. Rates of unrecognised high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes were statistically similar between the groups, although awareness was higher for cholesterol.
Important differences were also observed in the use of preventive treatments. Among healthcare professionals eligible for guideline-recommended therapy for primary prevention, 27.6% were taking blood-pressure-lowering medication compared with 46.5% of matched controls. Glucose-lowering medication was used by 60.0% of eligible healthcare professionals compared with 85.0% of controls.
Treatment gaps were also observed among healthcare professionals with established cardiovascular disease. In this group, 41.4% were receiving lipid-lowering therapy and 9.2% were taking antiplatelet medication despite guideline indications.
Interestingly, when healthcare professionals did receive treatment, they were more likely than matched controls to achieve recommended LDL cholesterol and blood pressure targets in primary prevention.
“These results tell us that once healthcare professionals engage with treatment, it works well,” said Dr. Wenzl. “The core problem lies earlier in the pathway – in whether guideline-recommended therapy is started and maintained at all.”
In secondary prevention, however, only 22.2% of healthcare professionals receiving lipid-lowering therapy achieved their LDL cholesterol target.
The authors say the findings highlight the potential value of structured cardiovascular screening and preventive care pathways for healthcare professionals rather than relying on professional knowledge and self-management alone.
“Even those who spend their careers treating cardiovascular disease in others often do not receive – or seek – the same standard of preventive care for themselves,” said joint senior author and ESC President Professor Thomas F. Lüscher. “This is not a failure of knowledge, but of implementation, and it points to systemic barriers that deserve attention.
Senior author and ESC Congress Programme Committee Chair, Professor Tomasz Guzik added; “The study offers a rare, large-scale window into a population that is otherwise difficult to study.”
Senior author Professor Borja Ibáñez of the Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), Madrid, said: “Medical knowledge alone does not translate into better personal implementation of guideline-recommended care.”
The researchers say further work is needed to identify approaches that could improve cardiovascular prevention among healthcare professionals, including dedicated screening programmes and peer-support models, and help close the implementation gap identified in the study.
ENDS
