Health Matters Heart Disease

Heart disease and stroke are the most common cardiovascular diseases. They are the first and third leading causes of death for both men and women in the United States, accounting for more than 35% of all deaths.

More than 870,000 Americans die of heart disease and stroke every year, which is about 2,400 people dying every day.

Although these largely preventable conditions are more common among older adults, more than 148,000 (17%) of Americans who died of cardiovascular diseases in 2004 were younger than age 65 years. Heart disease and stroke also are among the leading causes of disability in the U.S. workforce.

Nearly one million people are disabled from strokes alone. Don't join them. It is much easier to go work out and eat your greens - than it is to have to learn how to walk and talk and think again after a stroke. So stop smoking, eat vegetables (and we don't mean French Fries), and shoot some hoops, walk around the lake with your girl friends, take a salsa dancing class. Whatever you like to do to keep active that is the right thing. The cost of heart disease and stroke in the United States is projected to be more than $448 billion in 2008, including health care

expenditures and lost productivity from death and disability. Why does the entire country suffer from an overburdened health care system that suffers from largely PREVENTABLE diseases? Because we need to change our behavior and stop doing those things that make us sick. We also have to go and get checked so we can stop doing the things that make us sick - sooner. Or, we can start adopting a healthy life style now. In the US there are -

• 73 million people with high blood pressure

• 5.8 million who have suffered a stroke,

• 5.3 million with heart failure,

• 8.1 million who have had a heart attack,

• 9.1 million who suffer from regular chest pain (angina pectoris).

This year alone, more than 920,000 people will have a heart attack (myocardial infarction) and an additional 780,000 will have a stroke. In total, more than 6 million hospitalizations occur each year because of cardiovascular diseases.