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Cardiovascular Disease
The Center for Disease Control and American Heart Association estimate that nearly 13 million people in the United States have a disease called Coronary Artery Disease (CAD). In this condition, the vessels that supply blood to the pumping muscle of the heart are damaged. The walls are thickened and filled with fat and calcium deposits. Current theory states that the rupture of these “plaques” and the resulting blood clot in the vessel are the direct causes of heart attack.
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is estimated to affect a total of 50 million people in the United States. Both CAD and hypertension are diseases of the blood circulation system are part of a larger group of conditions that has been titled Cardio-Vascular Disease (CVD). This category of diseases also includes stokes, congestive heart failure and birth defect of the circulatory system. The most recent data available indicates that 61.8 million U.S. citizens have some form of CVD. That means that about 20%, or one out of every five people, has some form of CVD.
The effects of CVD are staggering. In the year 2000, the total number of deaths in the United States was approximately 2.4 million and of this over 1.4 million were directly from the effects of CVD. That’s a full 60% of all mortality. Think of all the possible causes of death, ranging from infections to accidents, AIDS to homicide, cancer to suicide – all of these causes put together and Cardio-Vascular Disease takes six out of every ten people. The American Heart Association website notes:
The problems of CVD are not new. Reviewing historical records shows that CVD has been the #1 cause of death in the United States for 99 of the last 100 years. From 1900 to 2000 there was only one year (1918) that diseases of the heart and blood vessels were not the leading cause of death.
These are not nameless, faceless, abstract numbers from some far away government office. The people dying from CVD are your family. Your friends. The people YOU care about.
Mainstream medicine has made some significant strides in the recent treatment of CVD. Actual death rates have remained approximately the same for several years, even though more people have diseases. This means that in terms of percentage points, fewer people are actually dying of CVD. The mainstays of medical treatment include aggressive screening and testing, drug therapy for people with known disease, and surgery for the most serious cases. CVD is a serious problem, but medical research is making important steps forward to better diagnoses and treat of these serious conditions.
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Og the Neanderthal by Richard Wilson
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