Tijd in goede gezondheid als heilige graal

• One of the challenges in medicine is to give patients good advice and guidance that will enable them to live for as long as possible in as good a state of health as possible.
• Prevention of disease is the best treatment. This is why it is so important to accurately predict the risk of various diseases such as cancer, vascular disease or diabetes mellitus.
• In high-risk patients it is useful to take preventative measures. To do this it is necessary to have information about the expected absolute treatment effect for each individual patient.
• All this information can then be used in a discussion between the patient and their treating professional so that together they can make an informed decision about whether or not to take preventative measures that are aimed at a longer disease-free life. This may or may not mean living longer, but it does mean a life in as good a state of health as possible.

Conflict of interest and financial support: none declared.