Half of US Adults Have Cardiovascular Disease.
Nearly half of all US adults have cardiovascular disease, according to a new report led by a School of Public Health researcher.
The high rate of cardiovascular disease shown in the report, which was published in the American Heart Association (AHA) journal Circulation, reflects the AHA’s recent change to the definition of high blood pressure. With the new, lower threshold for healthy blood pressure, the report found 121.5 million adults in the US—or about 48 percent—have some form of cardiovascular disease.
This should not be cause for alarm, but for action, says the report’s lead author, Emelia Benjamin, professor of epidemiology at SPH and professor of cardiovascular medicine at the School of Medicine. “The change acknowledges that many outcomes—such as stroke, dementia, myocardial infarction, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and end-stage renal disease— will be prevented or postponed with more stringent blood pressure definitions,” she says.
The AHA has released a report every year since 1958, based on data from the National Institutes of Health and other government sources. This is the first report to use the new definition of high blood pressure, updated by the AHA and American College of Cardiology in November of 2017. The new threshold is a reading of 130/80 millimeters of mercury, compared to the previous definition of 140/90.
Like last year’s report, this year’s shows that heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the US, and that stroke continues to be the fifth leading cause of death in the US.
The new report also shows several ups and downs. Americans are becoming more physically active, but obesity remains common. Smoking, though still in place as the leading cause of preventable death worldwide, is in consistent decline, but the authors of the report expressed concern about the sharp increase in adolescents using e-cigarettes.
The report’s co-authors included Andrew Stokes, assistant professor of global health, and Nicole Spartano of the School of Medicine.