Objective -To analyze in out clinic elderly patients of both sexes for the prevalence of risk factors for atherosclerosis and study their association with the complications of atherosclerosis. Cardiovascular disease as a complication of atherosclerosis is today the most important cause of morbidity and mortality among elderly people especially in the developed countries [1][2][3] . Although in the earlier decades of life women have a lower prevalence of cardiovascular disease, the latter increases with age, reaching a similar level to that of men around the age of 75 4-6 . The same tendency has been observed in Brazil. According to the Sistema Estadual de Análise de Dados (SEADE) and the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), in 1995, in the city of São Paulo coronary artery disease was more prevalent in men up to the age of 75 years, but the prevalence became similar in both sexes after that age 7 . Atherosclerosis is a disease in which multiple factors contribute to the degeneration of the arterial wall. It is evident that intensity and duration of injury define the severity of the alterations. Many risk factors were identified as having influence on the progression of atherosclerosis, mainly age, sex, heredity, diet composition, tobacco smoking, physical activity, obesity, systemic arterial hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, plasma fibrinogen levels, hyperhomocysteinemia, left ventricular hypertrophy and psycho-social factors.
MethodsResearchers in the area agree that an order of risk factors exists and, in addition to age, sex, and heredity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, tobacco smoking, and obesity must also be considered as major risk factors and deserve more attention. Most of the research, however, involves individuals of middle age and, more specifically, white males 8 . More recently, population studies have been aiming at the behavior of risk factors in the elderly, and some of these studies have cast doubt on their importance at this age 1,2,[9][10][11][12] . The goal of the present study was analyze in elderly individuals of both sexes the prevalence of the major risk factors and their correlation with atherosclerotic complications.
