Death rates for heart disease and stroke drop significantly; "remarkable achievement"

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: Los Angeles Times

The death rates for heart disease and stroke each dropped by about 30% between 1999 and 2006, allowing the American Heart Assn. to reach its 2010 goal of a 25% reduction in deaths four years early, researchers said today.

"It's one of the most remarkable achievements of modern medicine to have this kind of decline," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a cardiologist at UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine who was not involved in the research. "But there is still obviously a lot of work to be done. We still have the number one and three killers of men and women in the United States."

The association had already announced in January that it had achieved its goal for heart disease and was close to achieving its goal for strokes.

But experts fear the declines may soon be reversed. "Although death rates are declining, several of the risk factors leading to heart disease are increasing," said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, an American Heart Assn. spokeswoman. "There is an increase in obesity, diabetes and physical inactivity, which all lead to heart disease and stroke."

The annual report, published online today in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Assn., in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, showed that death rates in the U.S. from heart disease and stroke each dropped about 5% from 2005 to 2006, the most recent year for which data were available. Including the new data for 2006, researchers found a 30.7% reduction in heart disease deaths since 1999 and a 29.2% reduction in stroke deaths.

Fonarow said those gains were fueled by better preventive care for people in high-risk groups, more effective treatments in hospitals for those suffering heart attacks and strokes, and better care to prevent recurrences after a first episode....

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-heart16-2008dec16,0,4530000.story

[sakabatou]

1. Maybe it's because * is leaving office

[DeepModem Mom]

2. LOL! I'm sure MY blood pressure will improve! nt

[gblady]

3. this is such good news....

I had a major heart attack in March '08...
and I certainly am grateful for more effective treatments
and better follow up care...

Glad to see the 30% reduction in death rate...that's huge
and very happy to be a positive part of the stat.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. So glad you're a positive stat, too -- and thanks for posting. This is indeed great news! nt

[monmouth]

4. People quit smoking in great numbers also....n/t

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Good point. nt

[onehandle]

9. A big factor. nt

[Alexander]

13. That's it exactly, I think.

The one thing we get right in the United States is that we don't have nearly as many smokers as in other countries.

[NV Whino]

7. What, there's no one left alive to count any more?

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Life Expectancy Was 45 in 1900

It's 75+ now, and increasing a steady 4 months every year.

Something must be going right!

[Psephos]

10. Part of the reason lies in the decision to add folic acid to flour in the mid-90s n/t

[eridani]

11. This is on top of the dramatic decline since the 60s

Since the late 1960s, the decline in heart disease mortality has been substantial and unarguable; it has occurred in men and women, in whites and blacks, and at all ages.

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Xv85nSRfBakJ:www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/t960307c.html+1960+%22decrease+in+heart+disease%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=24&gl=us

Less smoking has probably helped.

[qwlauren35]

12. I "question" the data. I would bet that the reduction isn't across all demographics.

The frightening differences in how heart attacks occur in men and women were very eye-opening for me. I don't know why it's so different, but I've gotten the impression that women who have heart attacks can almost never be saved from death.

I would also be curious as to whether these reductions cross socio-economic lines. Were there reductions in the incidence of heart attack and stroke among the poor as well as the rich? Among people of color as well as whites?

The heart attack strikes me as a killer of wealthy white men. And as such, the American Heart Association has a huge lobby, and garners much sympathy... and money. I realize that I'm being cynical, but these aren't the only people worth saving.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Here is some data on 1998 figures

http://www.healthypeople.gov/Document/HTML/Volume1/12Heart.htm (see the tables started at 12-1, about half way down the page)

Overall, it shows that African Americans are at greatest risk of dying from heart disease, then whites; men are at higher risk than women; and in those under 65, those with less education (which is a rough proxy for income). For strokes, the gender figures are about equal, but other are similar to heart disease deaths.

Heart attacks are the major killer of all groups, it says; it's not just a 'wealthy white men' disease. According to this paper, women without diabetes survive coronary heart disease better than men without it; but women with diabetes have a worse survival rate than men with it:

Female Advantage in AMI Mortality Is Reversed in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes in the Skaraborg Project
...
Another study largely explains the higher relative risk of CHD mortality in women with type 2 diabetes with the more favorable survival rate in women without type 2 diabetes than in men without type 2 diabetes (16)

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/28/9/2246