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Researchers have good news and bad news about heart disease in the U.S.

The good news is, fewer people are dying of heart disease overall. The death rate from coronary artery disease in men fell by 52 percent between 1980 and 2002. In women, it dropped by 49 percent.

The bad news is, most of the benefit is being seen in older people. When researchers looked just at people age 35 to 54, the findings were anything but reassuring. While death rates did go down over the 22 year period, the rate of decline slowed markedly in younger people. In men, the drop ranged from 6.2 percent per year in the 1980s to just 0.5 percent per year between 2000 and 2002.

Women fared even worse. In the 1980s, the death rate dropped on average 5.4 percent per year. By 2000-2002, the rate of death had actually increased by 1.5 percent per year. That statistic wasn’t deemed scientifically significant, but another finding in even younger women - those age 35 to 44 - was. Women that age saw an increase of 1.3 percent in the heart disease death rate between 1997 and 2002.

“Young adults should take stock of their lifestyles,” study author Earl S. Ford, M.D., M.P.H., a medical officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, was quoted as saying. “If you’re smoking, you should quit. If you’re doing less than 30 minutes of physical activity per day, it’s time to find ways to be more active. If you need to lose weight, you should burn more calories than you take in.”

Philip Greenland, M.D., F.A.C.C., from Northwestern University, agreed in an editorial published along with the study. “This should be regarded as a wake-up call for everyone interested in heart disease and heart health. The take-home message is that heart disease has not gone away, continues to be a problem, and could become a greater problem if Americans fail to pay attention to known warning signs like overweight and obesity, and lack of exercise.”

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Cardiology, published online
Nov. 27, 2007

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