The National Journal reports, “Nearly every American has at least one risk factor for heart disease,” according to a report from the American Heart Association.
WebMD reports, “Every year, the American Heart Association works with the CDC and the National Institutes of Health to gather the most up-to-date statistics on heart disease, stroke, and other vascular diseases and their risk factors.”
According to HealthDay, the report’s “authors … looked at seven markers of cardiovascular health: smoking, weight, exercise, diet, cholesterol, blood pressure and fasting blood sugar levels, as well as whether or not a person had a diagnosis of heart disease.”
The authors found that, “using those criteria, 94 percent of US adults — that’s almost everyone — have at least one risk factor for heart disease.” The report is published in Circulation.
MedPage Today reports that the researchers found that, “despite the drop in death rates, the burden of cardiovascular disease and stroke remains high, killing about 2,200 and 360 Americans each day, respectively.”
HeartWire reports, “Obesity in children is an especially worrying trend, as about one in three US kids are overweight and the prevalence of childhood obesity has grown from 4% to over 20% since the early 1980s.”
Approximately 50 percent “of children 12 to 19 have at least three of the seven major risk factors.”