How Common is Heart Disease in America?

February is American Heart Month, which makes now the ideal time to take a closer look at your heart health and what you can do to improve it. Our healthcare providers believe that one of the best ways to reinforce the risk of heart disease is to present statistics about the disease and how prevalent it is. Probability says that you more than likely know someone that has been affected by heart disease. That’s because heart disease is the leading cause of death for adults in the US. But to fully grasp how common and potentially dangerous this condition is, we wanted to dig a little deeper into the statistics and present what we found and provide some suggestions for how people can reduce their risk.

How Common is Heart Disease in America?According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heart disease is responsible for nearly 650,000 deaths in the US each year. To put that in context, that means about 1 in every 4 deaths in the US is related to heart disease. They estimate that an American dies from heart disease once every 37 seconds. Costs related to heart disease including healthcare services, medications, and lost productivity reach about $219 billion each year.

The majority of these cases involve either Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) or heart attacks. CAD is the most common type of heart disease, killing about 370,000 people in the US annually.

Roughly 7% of all adults aged 20 and up have CAD. Additionally, over 800,000 Americans suffer a heart attack each year. Of these, about 20% are considered “silent” heart attacks where the person may not even be aware that an attack is occurring.

With these statistics in mind, it’s important to be aware of common risk factors for heart disease and to be proactive when it comes to maintaining good heart health. Obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are major factors to be aware of. This is also true for certain health conditions including diabetes. Though it may be slightly more common for men, heart disease is also the leading killer of women in the US so women should also take this risk seriously.

We recommend the following behaviors that can help reduce the risk of heart disease:

  • Eat a low fat, heart-healthy diet
  • Exercise regularly (30 minutes per day)
  • Do not smoke or use other forms of nicotine
  • Be proactive and speak with your doctor about your risk of heart disease during annual appointments

Understanding the threat of heart disease and being aware of your risk is an integral step in achieving and maintaining long-term heart health. We also recommend scheduling annual check-up appointments to make sure that your heart is healthy. For more information or if you would like to schedule an appointment, please contact Abraham Family Medicine today. Our office is located in Snellville, not far from Grayson, Dacula, and Lilburn.