Falling Heart Disease Rates

From the Independent: "It is one of medicine's mysteries: what has caused Britain's plummeting rate of heart disease over the last decade? Deaths from heart attacks have halved since 2002 and no one is quite sure why. Similar changes have occurred in countries around the world but the death rate in England, especially, has fallen further and faster than almost anywhere. ... The researchers looked at 840,000 men and women in England who had suffered a total of 861,000 heart attacks between 2002 and 2010. Overall, the death rates fell by 50 per cent in men and 53 per cent in women. ... For the last 70 years we have been in the grip of a heart disease epidemic that began in the 1940s, rose to a peak in the 1970s and then began to fall. All Western countries were affected and all followed broadly the same pattern. ... researchers conclude that just under half the decline in heart attack death rates in England over the last decade is due to better hospital treatment; the rest is due to changes in lifestyle and the widespread use of pills to lower cholesterol and blood pressure." One might theorize that - at the high level - increased heart disease across the last seven decades is a consequence of the fat and sedentary lifestyles that tend to accompany increases in wealth across the board, while reductions are largely due to improvements in medical technology.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-curious-case-of-the-vanishing-killer-6294626.html

Comments

Could the reduction in heart disease be due to reduced consumption of trans-fats?

Posted by: Iggy Dalrymple at January 29th, 2012 5:21 PM

love your site but this study is dumb. statment= death rates have dropped 50% well no kidding "dick tracy" becasue we got many many more tools . thats really a dumb statement .you act like we are gaining. tell you what i'll bet heart attacts are way up but survival is way up too. things are worse than ever . we are just able to pump them up to live longer .
Point -- come back with the heart attact rates not the deaths . the rest of the artical makes sense . too much food , too little exercise. the general population is obese. young kids too ! your comments ?

Posted by: winston smith at January 29th, 2012 6:43 PM

Emergency medicine.

What you should be tracking is rate of heart attacks.

Posted by: sam at February 28th, 2012 4:26 PM
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