Much of what we understand and take for granted regarding the risk factors for athersclerosis and heart disease actually comes from the Framingham Heart study. The study was initially started in 1948 in the Framingham, Massachusetts and continues to this day.
If you are a family doctor or are a medical student interested in family medicine you are probably familiar with the Framingham risk score (FRS) which is used on an almost daily basis. The FRS was initially derived from the Framingham Heart study. One of its most common uses today is to determine whether a patient may benefit from taking a statin, a cholesterol lowering medication. The FRS basically tells you your risk of developing a heart attack. According to the 2016 Canadian Cardiovascular Society Guidelines on dyslipidemia (https://www.ccs.ca/images/Guidelines/PocketGuides_EN/Lipids_Gui_2016_EN.pdf), if your FRS is above 20 % your risk is substantially high enough that you should be on a statin. If your FRS is between 10 and 19 % and you meet some additional risk factors such as age, smoking history, hypertension, LDL >= 3.5 mmol/L, etc. then it is also recommended that you start a statin. Aside from determining when to start a statin, the FRS is also a useful tool for patient education, as patients can have a more concrete understanding of what lifestyle changes they need to make in order to either avoid taking a statin in the near future or more importantly, lower their risk of having a heart attack.
Before the Framingham Heart study associations between heart disease and risk factors such as fatty foods, lack of exercise, age, and smoking history was not made entirely clear. The Framingham Heart study continues to this day as it continues to further elaborate on our understanding of primary and secondary prevention of coronary artery disease!