Deaths Decline, But Disease Not Gone
In it’s yearly update on cardiovascular disease, the American Heart Association reports that although the number of U.S. deaths from the disease have declined, diabetes and obesity continue to plague many Americans. This trend indicates that the burden of heart disease will extend well into the future.
An excerpt of an article by Todd Neale at MedPage Today is below. To read the complete article, click here. To read the news release from the American Heart Association, click here.
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Diabetes, Obesity Overshadow Lower CV Death Rate
By Todd Neale MedPage Today December 15, 2011
The U.S. death rate from cardiovascular disease and stroke has been declining, but that trend could be overshadowed by increasing rates of diabetes and obesity, the American Heart Association’s annual update on heart disease and stroke showed.
From 1998 to 2008, there was a more than 30% relative decrease in the rates of death from cardiovascular disease and stroke, according to Donald Lloyd-Jones, MD, of Northwestern University in Chicago, and colleagues.
However, continuing increases in rates of diabetes and obesity — despite some slowing in the trends — are taking a toll on other cardiovascular risk factors, “which we feel portends a fairly grim outlook in terms of the future burden of cardiovascular disease,” Lloyd-Jones told MedPage Today.
Despite the drop in death rates, the burden of cardiovascular disease and stroke remains high, killing about 2,200 and 360 Americans each day, respectively, the researchers reported online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
And there are indications that the decline in mortality — which started around 1970 — is slowing overall and even reversing among adults ages 35 to 44, Lloyd-Jones said.
