Heart Disease Facts

Heart disease is one of the greatest killers of the developed world, but armed with the facts you can go a long way to protecting yourself. This article gives a range of statistics associated with the conditions making up the disease.

Heart disease can strike anyone. It's a huge problem that is responsible for plenty of deaths throughout the world. In this article, we'll go over some statistics that relate to heart disease so that you can better understand the problem that it represents in society as we know it today.

- Heart disease is clearly one of the biggest problems faced by industrialized nations such as America. In the United States alone, a person dies as a result of heart disease approximately once every thirty four seconds. Heart attacks, one of the main reasons that people die from heart disease, occur in the United States once every twenty seconds.

- While both men and women are susceptible to heart attacks, studies have shown that the risk reaches men much earlier than women. Current estimates place a man's likelihood of having a heart attack at roughly ten years before the risk manifests in women.

- It's a familiar fact that cigarette smoking can be a significant contributor when it comes to developing a case of heart disease. There are many reasons that smoking causes damage to the body, but one that is especially significant to the health of the heart is that the heart muscle requires approximately ten percent more oxygen for those who smoke.

- One odd statistic regarding heart disease is the fact that those who eat beans regularly have a significantly lower risk of developing heart disease. Those who eat beans at least four times per week have a risk of heart disease that is approximately nineteen percent lower than those who do not eat beans.

- Studies have shown that an estimated one million, two hundred thousand people in the United States alone will come down with a coronary attack within any given year.

- Estimates place the number of people in the United States who were afflicted with a case of cardiovascular disease in the year 2003 alone at over seventy one million! Of these cases of cardiovascular disease, over nine hundred and ten thousand people died as a result in that year.

- Coronary heart disease is and always has been a major cause of death in modern day society. However, due to advanced medical knowledge and techniques, the rate of death from coronary disease fell over thirty percent from the year 1993 to 2003. The study that published these findings also stated that the rates of coronary heart disease deaths per one hundred thousand people were 209.2 for white males, 241.1 for black males, 160.3 for black females and 125.1 for white females, clearly illustrating the still catastrophic scope of the disease.

Clearly, heart disease is nothing to take lightly. Sadly, many of us will become afflicted with the illness, but there are measures that you can take in order to lessen your susceptibility. By keeping track of your cholesterol and maintaining a healthy lifestyle that features the proper dietary decisions along with plenty of physical activity, you are more likely to avoid becoming a statistic. Remember: your health is your responsibility.