Heart Disease and Stroke in 2011: Mortality Continues to Decline, but Overall Burden Remains High

December 15th, 2010

Heart Disease and Stroke in 2011: Mortality Continues to Decline, but Overall Burden Remains High

Larry Husten, PHD

From 1997 to 2007, the death rate from heart disease declined 27.8% and the death rate from stroke declined 44.8%. But inpatient cardiovascular operations and procedures increased during the same period by 27%, and heart disease and stroke cost $286 billion in 2007, more than any other diagnostic group. These are some of the most striking numbers contained in the AHA’s Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics — 2011, published online in Circulation.

“The mortality rate going down is good news; however, the fact that the burden of disease is so high indicates that we may have won a battle against mortality but have not won the war against heart disease and stroke,” said Véronique L. Roger, lead writer of the report, in an AHA press release.

Here are a few additional key items in the report:

One third of American adults have hypertension, and only half of them have their hypertension under adequate control.
15% of adults have total cholesterol levels of 240 mg/dL or higher.
8% of adults have been diagnosed with diabetes, and more than a third of adults are prediabetic.
Two thirds of adults are overweight.

For the first time, the statistical updates contain a chapter about the role of family history and genetics in cardiovascular disease, noting that parental history of an early MI doubles the risk for MI in men and increases the risk by 70% in women.

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/CIR.0b013e3182009701v1

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December 15th, 2010