Heart disease still owes a lot to the
couch potato and
cheeseburger factors, but if
this leading cause of death in
the United States were
eliminated, people would live
about seven years longer, says
a new report from the
American Heart Association
(AHA).
The most frustrating aspect of the statistics, says AHA
President Dr. Lynn Smaha, is that many leading risk
factors for heart disease and stroke can be avoided.
"We can prevent most of it. If we could prevent people
from smoking and having high cholesterol and get them
to exercise regularly and keep their blood pressure
under control, probably 50 or 60 percent of cases
could be prevented."
Instead, the 2000 Heart and Stroke Statistical
Update says only about 22 percent of American adults
get the recommended 30 minutes of physical activity at
least five times per week. And more than 110 million
Americans, including children as young as 6 years old,
are overweight, another risk factor for heart disease
and stroke.
The recent annual AHA report says about 60 million
Americans have some form of heart disease, which
claimed nearly 1 million lives in 1997, the most recent
year for which data are available.
Despite major medical advances, including bypass
surgery, angioplasty and advanced medications,
cardiovascular disease is still the No. 1 cause of death
for both men and women, accounting for 41 percent or
one of every 2.4 deaths, says the AHA.
Cardiovascular disease hits Americans in the wallet too,
costing nearly $300 billion in 1999 alone, says the
report.
One of the biggest misconceptions about heart disease
and stroke is that they strike men more than women,
says Smaha. In fact, more than half a million women die
from heart disease each year -- more than the next 14
causes of death combined.
"Women tend to get heart disease about 10 years later
in life than men," says Smaha, "but they're more likely to
die from their first heart attack. In fact, about a quarter
of men die from their first heart attack, but about 38
percent of women do."
The AHA says women are also just as prone to stroke
as men. Strokes killed 97,227 women in 1997, more
than twice the 41,943 women who died of breast
cancer that year.
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta says age-adjusted
death rates from cardiovascular diseases have, in fact,
declined an impressive 60 percent since 1950, but
recent figures show that downward trend leveling off in
the 1990s.
"Some argue that we've been able to take care of the
worst cases, but now we're getting down to
harder-to-reach populations, and that's causing the rate
to slow down," says Kurt Greenlund, a CDC
epidemiologist. "Those populations can include the
poor, who could have problems with access to health
care."
"We do see a general trend that the lower
socio-economic groups have higher heart disease and
have generally worse risk factors for heart disease as
well," he says. "One of the challenges in the upcoming
decade will be to decrease the inequality of heart
disease among different groups."
What To Do
Watch your diet, and exercise, especially if you have
risk factors like close family members who have heart
disease. We all know that a good diet and exercise are keys to
a longer, happier life.
Check this for a simple, cheap way to lower your cholesterol.
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