AHA End-Of-Year Stats Paint a Grim Picture, Although Cardiac Care Scores High

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AHA End-Of-Year Stats Paint a Grim Picture, Although Cardiac Care Scores

High

from Heartwire — a professional news service of WebMD

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/550027?src=mp

Wood

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December 28, 2006 (Dallas, TX) - As in other years, the American Heart

Association's (AHA's) year-end report paints a grim picture of the

incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke in the US, although

new data also suggest that heart and stroke patients are receiving good

care [1].

For 2004--the most recent data available--CVD (defined as coronary

disease, stroke, high blood pressure, heart failure, and congenital

cardiovascular defects) accounted for 36.3% of deaths in the US, with

the highest CVD death rates occurring in Mississippi and the lowest in

Minnesota. Strokes alone remained the third most common killer after

heart disease and cancers, but an analysis of stroke deaths between 1994

and 2004 suggests this number may be declining over time. Over the

10-year period, the stroke death rate fell more than 20%. According to a

2003 survey, stroke prevalence is higher in 10 Southeastern states than

in 13 non-Southeastern states and the District of Columbia.

New numbers from the AHA's Get With the Guidelines program suggest that

American hospitals are doing a decent job of providing care consistent

with professional guidelines. Of hospitals surveyed in 2005, adherence

to recommendations for treating CAD was 86.3%; for stroke, 88%; and for

heart failure, 82.5%.

Prevention the best medicine?

But if the best medicine is prevention, the AHA statistical update

suggests many Americans are still receiving a failing grade.

Approximately one out of three adults in the US has untreated

hypertension and another third have prehypertension. More than three out

of four adults report eating fewer than the recommended five servings of

fruits and vegetables per day; worse, in 2005, just 21.4% of boys and

18.7% of girls in grades 9 through 12 reported eating fruit or

vegetables five or more times per day.

Not surprisingly, obesity rates continue to soar across ethnic groups,

most strikingly in young people. According to statistics from 2003-2004,

nearly 14% of children ages two to five were overweight, while

age-adjusted numbers from the same period suggest that the prevalence of

overweight and obesity sits at 66.3% overall.

" Because many cardiovascular risk factors are preventable or easily

controlled through healthy lifestyle choices, changes in lifestyle

behaviors such as healthy diet and exercise could reduce the burden of

cardiovascular disease, " Dr Wayne mond (University of North

Carolina, Chapel Hill), chair of the AHA's Statistics Committee, stated

in an AHA press release.

The AHA update also provides a gloomy glimpse at other CVD risk factors.

• Almost one in four adults and 4.2% of adolescents have metabolic syndrome

• Seven percent of US adults have known diabetes and an additional 2.4%

are unaware they have the disease

• At least 65% of diabetics die from some form of CVD

• While rates of children exposed to second-hand smoke have dropped

substantially, more than one in five American adults smoke

• Smokers continue to die more than a decade earlier than nonsmokers and

are twice as likely to have a stroke, two to four times more likely to

develop coronary heart disease, and 10 times more likely to develop

peripheral vascular disease

The AHA's statistical update, culled from multiple government and

nongovernment sources, will appear online December 29, 2006 in

Circulation and at http://www.americanheart.org/statistics.

1. American Heart Association. Heart Disease and Stroke

Statistics--2007 Update. Dallas, TX: American Heart Association, 2006.

Available at: http://www.americanheart.org/statistics.

The complete contents of Heartwire, a professional news service of

WebMD, can be found at www.theheart.org, a Web site for cardiovascular

healthcare professionals.

Wood is a journalist for Medscape. She joined theheart.org, a

website acquired by WebMD, in 2000 and specializes in interventional

cardiology. She studied literature at McGill University and the

University of Cape Town and received her graduate degree in journalism

from the University of British Columbia, specializing in health

reporting. She can be reached at SMWood@....

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