Last month, the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology released guidelines for physicians on a syndrome it’s calling “CKM syndrome” or cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome, which they first dubbed a collection of disorders in 2023. “This is revolutionary,” said Nikos Pappan, a cardiologist at St. Clair Health and the leader of the health system’s new Center for Cardiometabolic Prevention, which encompasses nutrition consultation, lifestyle changes and personalized medicine. Nearly 90% of U.S. adults have CKM, either at stage 1 or higher, per research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2024. But during a time of provider and nurse shortages and eroding trust in medical institutions, he hopes this reframing can shift health systems’ priorities back toward preventive and personalized care. The guidelines recommend that if a patient has a risk factor higher than 5%, for instance, blood labs are proactively drawn.