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Heart Disease Death Rates: A Lopsided Decline |
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Harvard Heart Letter | March 2008
Heart Beat
Lopsided decline in heart disease deaths
Since
the 1960s, death rates from heart disease have fallen steadily — more
in men than women — thanks to better treatments and an emphasis on
prevention. That trend looks to be ending and could even reverse
itself. A report in the Nov. 27, 2007, Journal of the American College of Cardiology
shows that death rates from coronary artery disease actually increased
a bit among women between the ages of 35 and 54 since 2000 and have
been virtually flat for men. Chalk up this reversal to the dramatic
increases in obesity and diabetes, both of which promote heart disease.
While
the increase accounts for an extra 100 or so deaths a year — a drop in
the bucket compared with the 500,000 Americans felled annually by
coronary artery disease — the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention researchers who did the study call it the “leading edge of a
brewing storm.” Without greater attention to prevention, young women
and men will ease into old age with an extra burden of cardiovascular
risk that will translate into more heart disease and more deaths from
it.
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