Heart Disease Statistics

Heart disease statistics are staggering, and yet most people are not aware of the tremendous toll that cardiovascular disease inflicts on not just Americans, but people from all over the world, not to mention the tremendous economic burden. The following heart disease facts will hopefully provide some useful information and help emphasize the importance of your cardiovascular health.

1. Since 1900, cardiovascular disease has been the #1 killer
in the United States every year except 1918, the year of the
great influenza epidemic.

2. Cardiovascular disease claims as many lives each year as
the next seven leading causes of death combined.

3. There were 65,827,000 physician office visits with the
primary diagnosis of cardiovascular disease in 1999.

4. Nearly 62,000,000 Americans have at least one type of
cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure,
coronary heart disease, angina pectoris (chest pain due to
insufficient blood flow through the heart), and stroke.

5. Every 29 seconds, an American has what doctors call a
“coronary event,” such as a heart attack. A death occurs from
these events about once every minute.

6. Cardiovascular disease claimed 958,775 lives in 1999 -
40.1 percent of all deaths.

7. Every 53 seconds, someone in the United States has a
stroke. A death from a stroke takes places every three minutes.

8. More people visit their doctor's office for hypertension,
or high blood pressure, than for any other reason.

9. Cardiovascular disease affects women as well as men.
Women actually outnumber men in the prevalence of cases of
cardiovascular disease and in related deaths, with about
53 percent of the deaths from cardiovascular disease occurring
in women. Although studies repeatedly show that women
are much more anxious about developing breast cancer than
cardiovascular disease, one of every 2.4 deaths in women is
caused by cardiovascular disease, compared to one in
30 from breast cancer.

10. In 2001, the economic cost of all cardiovascular disease was
approximately $298 billion, including health expenditures
and lost productivity. More than $28 billion was
spent on cardiovascular drugs.

11. In the Unites States each year, cardiologists perform more
than 900,000 angioplasties and surgeons perform more than
121,000 carotid endarterectomies to help prevent stroke.

12. Strokes and heart attacks are among the leading causes of
long-term chronic disability.

13. Up to 90 percent of all cases of impotence are now known to
be directly related to "vascular insufficiency."

These heart disease statistics should keep anyone from taking their heart health for granted!