Heart attack, stroke deaths decline 30% since 1999

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Deaths from heart attacks and strokes declined by about 30 percent since 1999, an improvement that may be due to more aggressive treatment with cholesterol and blood-pressure drugs and more healthful diets.

With a growing incidence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, however, doctors say they are worried that the rates are poised to climb back up again.

The decline — 30.7 percent for heart attack deaths and 29.2 percent for stroke deaths — represents about 190,000 fewer deaths from those diseases in 2006 compared with 1999, according to the report released online Monday by the American Heart Association.

About half the decline was due to more aggressive use of cholesterol and blood-pressure drugs, as well as more widespread rapid treatments in the hospital for heart attack and stroke patients, said Don Lloyd-Jones, lead author of the report and an associate professor of medicine and preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

The rest of the decline was due to improvements in diet, including less saturated and trans fats and less salt, as well as less smoking, he said.

Nonetheless, researchers already are noticing a small uptick in cardiovascular disease deaths among people age 35 to 54 as a result of obesity, physical inactivity and Type 2 diabetes, Lloyd-Jones said. That could signal an end to the declining overall death rates, he said.