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ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

 

February is officially here and is recognized as American Heart Month throughout the U.S.

“In the United States, heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women, and people of most racial and ethnic groups,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted. “One person dies every 33 seconds from cardiovascular disease and in 2022, 702,880 people died from heart disease, which is the equivalent of one in every five deaths. Heart disease cost about $252.2 billion from 2019 to 2020. This includes the cost of health care services, medicines, and lost productivity due to death.”

“Heart disease has now been the leading cause of death in this country for 100 years straight, since 1921,” Joseph C. Wu, M.D., Ph.D., FAHA, volunteer president of the American Heart Association, director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and the Simon H. Stertzer Professor of Medicine and Radiology at Stanford School of Medicine, noted in a release from the American Heart Association. “Heart disease along with stroke, which is the fifth leading cause of death, claims more lives in the U.S. than all forms of cancer and chronic lower respiratory disease combined, based on the most recent data available. The results of our recent survey, finding that most people do not know the significant impact of heart disease, is discouraging and even a bit frightening.”

Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) includes heart attacks (myocardial infarction) and angina pectoris (chest pain).

“In the U.S. population, 7.9 million individuals have suffered heart attacks and 9 million have experienced angina pectoris. Data from 2010 shows the overall prevalence for myocardial infarction in American adults aged 20 and older is 3.1 percent,” the National Institute of Health (NIH) noted. “Men are more likely than women to have had a heart attack. The prevalence among non-Hispanic white men and non-Hispanic black men is the same (4.3 percent), while Mexican American men are less likely to have had a heart attack (3 percent). Both non-Hispanic white women and non-Hispanic black women experience higher rates of heart attack (2.1 and 2.2 percent, respectively) than do Mexican American women at 1.1 percent. Data from the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) show the highest prevalence of heart attack is in West Virginia (6.5 percent) and Kentucky (5.9 percent). The lowest rate (1.9 percent) was reported in the District of Columbia. West Virginia also had the highest prevalence of angina or coronary heart disease, while the District of Columbia had the lowest.”

The NIH added statistics regarding strokes are also rather startling, with about 7 million Americans aged 20 or older having experienced one.

“Each year approximately 610,000 experience their first stroke and another 185,000 experience a recurrence. Approximately 87 percent of all strokes are ischemic; 10 percent result from intracerebral hemorrhage and 3 percent result from subarachnoid hemorrhage,” the NIH noted. “Approximately 2.7 percent of men and 2.5 percent of women aged 18 or older have a history of stroke. According to the 2009 BRFSS, the states with the highest prevalence of stroke were Alabama and Oklahoma, and the lowest was Colorado. NHLBI reports that blacks have nearly twice the risk of first-time stroke when compared with whites. The age-adjusted stroke incidence rates at ages 45–84 are 6.6 per 1,000 persons in black males, 3.6 in white males, 4.9 in black females, and 2.3 in white females. Data from the Strong Heart Study also found incidence of stroke was 6.8 per 1,000 persons (age- and sex-adjusted) in American Indians. According to the CDC, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and smoking are key risk factors for heart disease, while several other medical conditions and lifestyle choices can also put people at a higher risk for heart disease, including diabetes, obesity, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, excessive alcohol use.

American Heart Month provides an important opportunity to emphasize the sharing of best practices, aligning measurements, advancing implementation strategies, and providing leadership to focus on the burden of cardiovascular disease, and its commemoration goes back to President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

“Whereas more than one-half of the 10 million Americans afflicted by cardiovascular diseases are stricken during their most productive years, thereby causing a staggering physical and economic loss to the nation,” Johnson’s proclamation noted. “And Whereas expanded research has contributed unproved methods of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the cardiovascular diseases; and Whereas substantial progress in combating those diseases is being made by comprehensive educational and community programs which have brought about swift and wide dissemination and use of such improved methods; and Whereas these programs of research and education have resulted largely from the teamwork between the American Heart Association, its chapters and affiliates, and the Federal Government, particularly the Public Health Service through the National Heart Institute and the Heart Disease Control Program; and Whereas the results thus far achieved in combating the cardiovascular diseases give hope that the continuation and expansion of these programs may eventually eliminate these diseases as important causes of death; and Whereas it is essential to the health and well-being of our nation that our citizens be made aware of the medical, social, and economic aspects of the problem of cardiovascular diseases, and the measures being taken to combat them ... I urge the people of the United States to give heed to the nationwide problem of the heart and blood-vessel diseases, and to support the programs required to bring about its solution.”

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