LONDON -- European doctors need to do more to prevent heart attacks and deaths among patients with heart disease, Reuters quoted researchers as saying on Saturday.

Heart disease is the number one killer in many industrialized countries but a new study published in the ***Lancet*** medical journal claims European doctors are collectively failing to help patients reduce risks factors for the disease.

Doctors who compared the results of two European surveys of heart patients, which were done four years apart, found that obesity had increased, patients had not stopped smoking and blood pressure and cholesterol levels had not gone down.

"These results are a call to action for cardiologists, physicians and other health care professionals," said Professor David Wood of Imperial College School of Medicine in London, who helped to conduct the study.

"Adverse trends in smoking, especially among younger patients, and the substantial rise in obesity across all European countries emphasize the overarching importance of a social approach to coronary prevention," he added.

More than 3,000 patients in the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain were questioned for the two phases of the Eurospire study between 1995-96 and 1999-2000.

More patients were using drugs to control their blood pressure and cholesterol levels in the second survey but most of the patients were not involved in any program to help them reduce life-style risks.

"There is a collective failure of medical practice in Europe to achieve the substantial potential among patients with coronary heart disease to reduce the risk of recurrent disease and death," Wood and his colleagues added.