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Heart attacks are less lethal than ever in the United States, reveals a new report.
And the number of Americans hospitalized for a heart attack has dropped by nearly 40% over the past 20 years, according to the Yale University scientists' badysis.
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death for men and women of all races in the United States, but this historic decline is a cause for celebration for public health officials.
This is all the more true as the decline in the rate of heart attacks and the increase in survival rates are the result of record smoking rates, healthier lifestyles in some populations, and uniform adoption. by the doctors of statin prescription and aspirin, according to an expert.
In 1995, 20% of heart attack patients died within 30 days, but this number dropped by 38%. In 2014, the mortality rate was 12%, says the graph.
Heart disease kills more people in the world than any other infection, disease, accident or chance of genetics.
But it has been particularly devastating for the American population, where high-fat Western diets, high rates of smoking and sedentary lifestyles have left our heart health in shambles.
It has been an uphill battle for health officials and clinicians, but the wind is finally reversing, according to the new study published today in the JAMA Network Open.
Since the mid-1990s, hospital admissions for heart attacks in people over the age of 65 have decreased by 38% in the United States, according to new data badysis of Medicare patients.
And less than a third of these patients die of heart attacks, reducing the death rate to 12%, the lowest of all time.
According to Dr. Harlan Krumholz, lead author of the study and Yale Cardiologist, Dr. Harlan Krumholz, lead author of the study and a medical researcher, is the way doctors and patients use what we know already.
"What is truly remarkable is that in the mid-1990s we had many powerful treatments and strategies needed to prevent heart attacks and save patients," he said.
"But they were applied inconsistently."
The Nobel Prize was awarded to scientists who discovered that aspirin prevented the formation of blood clots leading to a heart attack in 1982.
Aside from a brief increase in readmission rates to 30 days (light blue), length of hospital stays, repeated heart attacks in the year and hospital mortality rates have all decreased
And statins, revolutionary anti-cholesterol drugs known to reduce the risk of heart attack, appeared on the market in 1987.
Long before that, the historical report confirming the link between smoking and death from heart disease was published in the 1950s.
Although the American Heart Association (AHA) did not officially recognize obesity as a risk factor for heart disease prior to 1997, this link had already been demonstrated in a number of cases. ;studies.
American doctors were generally aware of these risk factors, treatments and preventive measures – in the mid-1990s – but knowing and doing (systematically) are not the same thing.
"By the mid-1990s, we had not learned that smoking, high blood pressure or cholesterol were bad, but we started to improve," said Dr. Krumholz.
Along with the AHA's recognition of the link between obesity and cardiovascular disease and the resulting recommendations, Dr. Krumholz says the badociation, government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have become a united front, issuing clear guidelines to follow. in all hospitals.
At the same time, hospitals have been subject to a more thorough and comprehensive review, receiving "report cards" indicating the degree of education and treatment of patients at risk or having suffered a heart attack.
And just as importantly, "patients have become more sophisticated and aware of the risk factors," says Dr. Krumholz.
It's one thing for doctors to know that people should quit, but another for the general population to take this advice to heart.
Heart attack death rates have declined across the country, although some areas in red have seen more dramatic declines, while others have seen more subtle declines (green).
Since the 1960s, smoking rates have been steadily declining and this decline has only accelerated since 2010.
In 2017, smoking reached its lowest level in the United States.
Dr. Krumholz attributes this to both national and international awareness campaigns and the initiative taken by patients to prevent a first heart attack or a new heart attack.
But this change has not been universal and does not apply to diet and exercise.
Dr. Krumholz said that "population groups that have truly embraced the idea of a healthy lifestyle" have helped lower rates of heart attack and death.
"It's hard not to say that it probably contributes … but it's mostly the economically disadvantaged who are left behind.
"So, that is not enough, and it contributes to the disparities, because it is divided according to economic criteria."
Obesity remains the highest among low-income and minority-owned Americans, but it has continued to grow among the population, which bodes ill for the health of the nation's heart.
"The progress made is in danger," says Dr. Krumholz.
"Obesity and diabetes are on the rise and we will see the impact in 10 years.
In addition, he adds: "Many people worry about vaping. We are making progress in the area of tobacco, which we may be losing elsewhere.
"We must remain vigilant because these advances are not certain for the future, and even the progress we have made could make us lose."
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