Hospitalizations, deaths from heart disease, stroke drop in last decade

American Heart Association Rapid Access Journal Report

2014-08-18

(Press-News.org) U.S. hospitalizations and deaths from heart disease and stroke dropped significantly in the last decade, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

"Interestingly, these improvements happened in a period when there were no real 'miracle' clinical advancements," said Harlan Krumholz, M.D., S.M., lead author of the "most comprehensive report card to-date" on America's progress in heart disease and stroke prevention and treatment. "Rather, we saw consistent improvements in the use of evidence-based treatments and medications and an increase in quality improvement initiatives using registries and other data to track performance and support improvement efforts — as well as a strong emphasis on heart-healthy lifestyles and behaviors."

Researchers collected data on nearly 34 million Medicare Fee-For-Service recipients in 1999-2011. They analyzed trends in rates of hospitalization, dying within a month of being admitted, being admitted again within a month and dying during the following year. They considered patient factors including age, sex, race, other illnesses and geography.

By the end of 2011, hospitalization rates among all races and areas dropped: 38 percent for heart attack; 83.8 percent for unstable angina, sudden chest pain often leading to heart attack; 30.5 percent for heart failure; and 33.6 percent for ischemic stroke.

Furthermore, risks of dying for people who went to the hospital within a year decreased about 21 percent for unstable angina, 23 percent for heart attacks and 13 percent for heart failure and stroke.

"Huge strides in lifestyle, quality of care and prevention strategies for cardiovascular health have seemed to have a ripple effect on saving lives," said Krumholz, director of the Center of Outcomes Research and Evaluation at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Conn. "As a result, our country has undergone remarkable changes, which has reduced suffering and costs."

Other significant contributions included improvements in identifying and treating high blood pressure, a rapid rise in the use of statins, marked declines in smoking and more timely and appropriate treatment for heart attack patients, he said.

"There is still more work to do as heart disease and stroke combined remain the leading cause of death and disability, but this study documents astonishing progress and national achievement," Krumholz said.

INFORMATION:

Co-authors are Sharon-Lise Normand, Ph.D. and Yun Wang, Ph.D. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute supported the study.

Additional Resources: Learn about guidelines that can help prevent heart disease and stroke. Follow AHA/ASA news on Twitter @HeartNews. For updates and new science from the Circulation journal follow @CircAHA.

Statements and conclusions of study authors published in American Heart Association scientific journals are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the association's policy or position. The association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at http://www.heart.org/corporatefunding.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Cholesterol drug cuts heart and stroke risks by 30 percent in diabetic women: Study

2014-08-18

The cholesterol-lowering drug fenofibrate cuts cardiovascular disease risks by 30 per cent in women with type-2 diabetes, a new University of Sydney study reveals. "The finding is good news for women," says the study's chairman, University of Sydney Professor, Tony Keech. "The study shows that fenofibrate reduced the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, or having a stroke or other adverse cardiovascular event by 30 per cent in women and 13 per cent in men." The leading cause of death in women, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a constellation of ailments affecting ...

Older patients with limited life expectancy still receiving cancer screenings

2014-08-18

A substantial number of older patients with limited life expectancy continue to receive routine screenings for prostate, breast, cervical and colorectal cancer although the procedures are unlikely to benefit them. The authors are Trevor J. Royce, M.D., M.S., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues. An aim of Healthy People 2020 is to increase the proportion of individuals who receive cancer screening consistent with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's (USPSTF) evidence-based guidelines. And there is general agreement that routine cancer screening ...

Implantable heart devices result in similar survival benefits among ethnic, racial group

2014-08-18

Racial and ethnic minorities who receive implantable devices to treat heart failure derive the same substantial survival benefit from these therapies as white patients, new UCLA-led research shows. While the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association jointly recommend the use of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices for all eligible patients, minorities have not been well represented in clinical trials of the devices, and previous studies had shown that African American and Hispanic patients ...

Researchers inspired by marine life to design camouflage systems

2014-08-18

It could be a fun party trick – put your cell phone down on a table and watch it fade into the woodwork – or part of a lifesaving technology used by industry or the military. Researchers have developed a technology that allows a material to automatically read its environment and adapt to mimic its surroundings. The technology is described in a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Cunjiang Yu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Houston and lead author of the paper, said the optoelectronic ...

NOAA analysis reveals significant land cover changes in US coastal regions

2014-08-18

A new NOAA nationwide analysis shows that between 1996 and 2011, 64,975 square miles in coastal regions--an area larger than the state of Wisconsin--experienced changes in land cover, including a decline in wetlands and forest cover with development a major contributing factor. Overall, 8.2 percent of the nation's ocean and Great Lakes coastal regions experienced these changes. In analysis of the five year period between 2001-2006, coastal areas accounted for 43 percent of all land cover change in the continental U.S. This report identifies a wide variety of land cover ...

Neighborhood ethnic composition and problem drinking among older Mexican American men

2014-08-18

BATON ROUGE – LSU Sociology Professor Samuel Stroope is the lead author of a new study, "Neighborhood Ethnic Composition and Problem Drinking among Older Mexican American Men," that will appear in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. Stroope – and co-authors at Baylor University and the University of Texas Medical Branch – found that older Mexican-American men are less likely to engage in problem drinking as residents of neighborhoods with a higher proportion of Mexican-Americans. The study used data on 350 men aged 75 and older from the "Hispanic Established ...

Waterloo makes public most complete Antarctic map for climate research

2014-08-18

The University of Waterloo has unveiled a new satellite image of Antarctica, and the imagery will help scientists all over the world gain new insight into the effects of climate change. Thanks to a partnership between the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA), the prime contractor for the RADARSAT-2 program, and the Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN) at UWaterloo, the mosaic is free and fully accessible to the academic world and the public. Using Synthetic Aperture Radar with multiple polarization modes aboard the ...

Targeted brain stimulation aids stroke recovery in mice, Stanford scientists find

2014-08-18

When investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine applied light-driven stimulation to nerve cells in the brains of mice that had suffered strokes several days earlier, the mice showed significantly greater recovery in motor ability than mice that had experienced strokes but whose brains weren't stimulated. These findings, which will be published online Aug. 18 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help identify important brain circuits involved in stroke recovery and usher in new clinical therapies for stroke, including the placement ...

Fighting unfairness

2014-08-18

Just about every parent is familiar with the signs: the crying, the stomping feet and pouting lips, all of which are usually followed by a collapse to the floor and a wailed insistence that, "It's not fair!" While most people – including many parents – see such tantrums merely as part of growing up, a new study conducted by Harvard scientists suggests that, even at a relatively young age, children have advanced ideas about fairness, and are willing to pay a personal price to intervene in what they believe are unfair situations, even when they have not been personally ...

Bacterial nanowires: Not what we thought they were

2014-08-18

For the past 10 years, scientists have been fascinated by a type of "electric bacteria" that shoots out long tendrils like electric wires, using them to power themselves and transfer electricity to a variety of solid surfaces. Today, a team led by scientists at USC has turned the study of these bacterial nanowires on its head, discovering that the key features in question are not pili, as previously believed, but rather are extensions of the bacteria's outer membrane equipped with proteins that transfer electrons, called "cytochromes." Scientists had long suspected ...

Hospitalizations, deaths from heart disease, stroke drop in last decade

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: