Prevalence

An estimated 80,700,000 American adults (one in three) have one or more types of cardiovascular disease (CVD), of whom 38,200,000 are estimated to be age 60 or older. Except as noted, the estimates were extrapolated to the U.S. population in 2005 from NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey1999–2004.

(Total CVD includes diseases in the bullet points below except for congenital CVD.) Due to overlap, it is not possible to add these conditions to arrive at a total. • High blood pressure (HBP)—73,000,000. (Defined as systolic pressure of 140 mm Hg or greater and/or diastolic pressure of 90 mm Hg or greater, taking antihypertensive medication or being told at least twice by a physician or other health professional that you have high blood pressure.)

• Coronary heart disease (CHD)—16,000,000.

• Myocardial infarction (MI, or heart attack)— 8,100,000.

• Angina pectoris (AP, or chest pain)—9,100,000.

• Heart failure (HF)—5,300,000.

• Stroke—5,800,000.

• Congenital cardiovascular defects—650,000– 1,300,000.

• The following prevalence estimates are for people age 18 and older from NCHS/NHIS, 2005:

(Vital Health Stat 10.2006[232]:1–153)

– Among whites only, 12.0 percent have heart disease, 6.6 percent have CHD, 21.0 percent

have hypertension and 2.3 percent have had a stroke.

– Among blacks, 10.2 percent have heart disease, 6.2 percent have CHD, 31.2 percent have

hypertension and 3.4 percent have had a stroke.

– Among Hispanics or Latinos, 8.3 percent have heart disease, 5.9 percent have CHD, 20.3

percent have hypertension and 2.2 percent have had a stroke.

– Among Asians, 6.7 percent have heart disease, 3.8 percent have CHD, 19.4 percent have

hypertension and 2.0 percent have had a stroke.

– Among Native Hawaiians or other Pacific

Islanders, 22.4 percent have hypertension (other prevalence estimates considered unreliable).

– Among American Indians or Alaska Natives, 13.0 percent have heart disease, 2.5 percent have

CHD, 25.5 percent have hypertension and 5.8 percent have had a stroke (estimate for HD may

be unreliable).

Incidence

• Based on the NHLBI’s (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute) Framingham Heart Study (FHS) (1980–2003)… (Hurst W. The Heart, Arteries and Veins.10th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 2002)

– The average annual rates of first major cardiovascular events rise from three per 1,000 men at ages 35–44 to 74 per 1,000 at ages 85–94. For women, comparable rates occur 10 years later in life. The gap narrows with advancing age.

– Before age 75, a higher proportion of CVD events due to CHD occur in men than in women, and a higher proportion of events due to stoke occur in women than in men.

• Data from the FHS (Framingham Heart Study) indicate that the lifetime risk for CVD is two in three for men and more than one in two for women at age 40.

(Personal communication, Donald Lloyd-Jones, MD, Northwestern University, Chicago, Ill.)

Mortality

• Final mortality data show that CVD (I00–I99, Q20–Q28) as the underlying cause of death

(including congenital cardiovascular defects) accounted for 36.3 percent (869,724) of all

2,397,615 deaths in 2004, or one of every 2.8 deaths in the United States. CVD total mention deaths (1,357,000 deaths in 2004) accounted for about 57 percent of all deaths in 2004.

(NCHS, National Center for Health Statistics Compressed mortality file: underlying cause of death,1979 to 2004; http://wonder.cdc.gov/mortSQL.html)

• In every year since 1900, except 1918, CVD accounted for more deaths than any other single cause or group of causes of death in the United States.

• Nearly 2,400 Americans die of CVD each day, an average of one death every 37 seconds.CVD claims about as many lives each year as cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, accidents and diabetes mellitus combined.

• The 2004 overall death rate from CVD (I00–I99) was 288.0. The rates were 335.1 for white males and 454.0 for black males; 238.0 for white females and 333.6 for black females. From 1994–2004, death rates from CVD (ICD/10 I00– I99) declined 24.7 percent. In the same 10-year period, actual CVD deaths declined 8 percent.

• Other causes of death in 2004 (based on final mortality figures)—cancer, 553,888; accidents, 112,012; Alzheimer’s disease, 65,965; HIV (AIDS), 13,063

• Final 2004 CVD death rates were 341.7 for males and 245.3 for females. Cancer (malignant neoplasms) death rates were 227.7 for males and 157.4 for females. Breast cancer claimed the lives of 40,954 females in 2004; lung cancer claimed 68,461. Death rates for females were 24.4 for breast cancer and 41.6 for lung cancer.

One in 30 female deaths is from breast cancer, while one in six is from CHD. By comparison, one in 4.6 women die of cancer while one in 2.6 die of CVD. Based on 2004 mortality, CVD caused about a death a minute among females —more than 460,000 female lives in 2004. That’s more female lives than were claimed by cancer,

chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, accidents and diabetes combined.

• More than 148,000 Americans killed by CVD (I00–I99) in 2004 were under age 65. In 2004, 32 percent of deaths from CVD occurred prematurely (i.e., before age 75, which is well below the average life expectancy of 77.9 years).

• According to the NCHS (National Center for Health Statistics), if all forms of major CVD were eliminated, life expectancy would rise by almost seven years. If all forms of cancer were eliminated, the gain would be three years. (U.S. Decennial Life Tables for 1989–91, Volume 1, No.4. Eliminating Certain Causes of Death, 1989–91. NCHS,September 1999.)

Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics — 2008 Update, American Heart Association

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, nearly 40 per cent of it’s population is obese. The number of obese children have tripled over the last 2 decades.
Despite the exhortations of different health experts to eat less and exercise more, millions of people in industrialized nations have been getting fatter. Latest figure show that more than half the adult population is overweight, and about one in five is obese. Basically speaking, this means that one out of three of you reading this, is technically overweight or obese.

Obesity is simply an excess of fat deposit in our body cells. When deposited as a high risk abdominal fat, they make the body resistant to the effect of insulin causing it’s level in the blood to rise. Raised insulin can lead to high blood pressure, raised blood lipids and increase in blood sugar level. And all this indicates greater risk of coronary heart disease.

Are you at risk?
There are several ways of knowing and measuring obesity- Body mass Index (BMI). This is commonly used to measure your weight relative to your height. That is by taking your weight in kilogram and dividing it by the square of your height in meters
i.e.:
BMI = Weight (kg)
Height (m)2

An individual weight is commonly classified this way:
Less than 25 - Healthy
25 – 30 - Overweight
Over 30 - Obese
So the greater the BMI, the higher the risk of developing heart disease. About 70% of heart disease cases in the United States are linked to excess body fat.

Why are we getting fatter?
That’s a one million question we have to ask ourselves. In our modern society, the wide availability of energy-dense food in large portion combine with the fact that we are less active in exercise has resulted in our getting fatter everyday. Moreover, a good deal of our meal has been based around fast foods like burger, pizza and chips instead of fruits and vegetables. Obesity thus can be regarded as a chronic energy imbalance, in which intake exceed expenditure and excess energy is stored as fat.

You may ask why some people put on wight easily while others can eat anything they want and never gain an ounce of weight. In this case, it can be genetically influence whereby obesity runs in the family. Children with obese parents have at least 60% chance of becoming obese compared with less than 20% in children of lean parents. Other factors may be social, psychological or can be a medical disorder and drugs.

You can choose any type of weight loss plan you like but make sure you create a sensible energy balance of around 500 -600 calories per day. Regular exercise is highly recommended to maintain this daily. The type of exercise is not important provided it stimulates the heart and body circulation sufficiently. Any activity like jogging, walking, running, dancing, swimming, aerobics, cycling or gym work out will definitely help put off CHD at any rate.
So, it’s clear that physically active people have only half the risk of heart attack compared to sedentary ones.
Not only will physical exercise lower your risk of coronary heart disease, it will also give you a stronger and well conditioned heart.

To learn more about obesity and heart diseases Call 1-800-AHA-USA1 (1-800-242-8721) or visit http://www.americanheart.org

Knowledge is power, so Learn and Live!

There seem not to be one single cause of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), but medical research have, however, shown that a whole range of things can make you more likely to develop Coronary Heart Disease.
Just like a very high speeding car is more likely to hit and crash into another car than a slower speeding car. So a person with one or more risk factors will be more likely to develop heart disease than someone without any. Though not every very high speeding car crash and not every with Coronary Heart Disease risk factors gets a heart attack, but the chances are undeniably greater.

These risk factors are divided into two groups: the non-modifiable and the modifiable factors.

The non-modifiable risk factors: are as the name implies, are those risk that we cannot do anything about. They can’t be altered by our lifestyle changes or medical treatments. And they include:

Age and gender: Coronary heart disease becomes more common with older age and it is the strongest predictor of coronary deaths in women. Two third of women who die from heart diseases are ages between 55 – 65 years old. Below the age of 65, it is much more common disease among men then women. This is because after menopause (a period when women menstruating).

Coronary Heart Disease becomes more common among women. It does seem likely that age different among men and women with CHD is related to estrogen hormone that disappear once menstruation stops, this hormone has a way of regulating and maintaining the effects of the Coronary Heart Disease in women. But test carried on women who are undergoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) have shown some evidence that this can protect against heart diseases. Many doctors are recommending HRT for this reason as well as, of course for other reasons.

Family history or Genetic factor: as with age and gender, we don’t choose our parents so we’re stuck with our genetic history. If your father or mother had a heart attack below the age of 65, this may increase your own risk significantly, but getting it from a second or third degree relative is less likely. The reason being that the gene we inherit from our parents may make us more liable to have high cholesterol or less insulin production in our body.
It is advisable to have a medical check up from time to time with your doctor in order to reduce or treat the risk on time.

The modifiable risk factors: are the ones that can be influenced by changes in our various lifestyles such as diet, physical exercise and medical treatment. The major risk factors include smoking, raised blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, lack of exercise. While the contributory risk factors are obesity, stress, alcoholism, raises insulin level, fibrinogen, homocysteine and some others.

The risk of you developing Coronary Heart Disease becomes greater the more risk factor you have. Some risk however has much greater effect on your chances of developing Coronary Heart Disease, for instance a smoker with high blood pressure and a raised cholesterol level has a much higher risk than a non-smoker who has these factors.

In general, Coronary Heart Disease is a disease of the affluence, it’s rare in the tropics and developing countries but common in North America, northern Europe and Australia and it’s more related to lifestyle.

To learn more about risk factors in coronary heart disease Call 1-800-AHA-USA1 (1-800-242-8721) or visit http://www.americanheart.org

Knowledge is power, so Learn and Live!