Annually, heart disease is the number one killer of Americans. Doctors and health care professionals have emphasized the importance of making lifestyle changes to decrease the risks of heart attacks and strokes. The online journal, Circulation,published an article recently that gives these professionals reason to celebrate. According to the article, a study shows that healthy lifestyle changes and increased awareness efforts have drastically decreased the amount of people hospitalized with heart problems.
This study comes from the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. Researchers collected the medical data on over 34 million Medicaid-covered patients between 1999 and 2011. The findings show that the number of hospital visits for heart attacks dropped by nearly 38%, and that the improvements in the quality of care for patients has decreased the risk of death from heart attacks by 20%. The results are staggering. Lead researcher Dr. Harlan Krumholz commented on the results saying:
“They really show that we have begun to reverse this epidemic of heart disease and stroke. No one thought this kind of progress was possible in this short period of time. There is a path to reverse epidemics borne of lifestyle rather than from infectious causes.”
Heart disease may be declining but that will not stop the efforts of health officials to spread awareness and emphasize the importance of lifestyle changes that take care of the heart. There are still people who smoke, eat fast food as a staple to their diets, and forego exercise to entertain themselves inside their homes. However, the results show that America is on the right track, hopefully there will be another drop in the percent of those hospitalized for heart problems in the years to come.
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Share this post and let everyone know of the great strides our nation as taken in the battle to prevent heart disease. Also, share your lifestyle changes that help to keep your heart pumping at peak performance.
