Nearly Half Of Americans Have High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, Or Diabetes

This is really troubling. As I discussed in my blog last week, health care will continually be a problem if we do not prevent the disease from occurring in the first place. With almost 50% of Americans having high BP, high cholesterol or diabetes, it should come as no surprise that heart disease and stroke are the #1 and #3 killers of all Americans respectively. Although the cause of this phemomena is complex, we must become a healthier society. This must start with how we care for ourselves and are children. We all must eat better and get more exercise. It will take years to change this trend but if we do not start now, health care costs will bankrupt us.

 

From the ACC Newsletter:

ABC World News (4/26, story 7, 1:20, Sawyer) reported that "almost half of American adults, 45% of us, now have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes," according to researchers from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

The Los Angeles Times (4/27, Maugh) reports that "one in eight Americans has at least two of the conditions and one in 33 has all three, sharply increasing their risk." These "data come from the ongoing National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey." While "researchers should be able to use the new data to plan interventions, 'the main thing here is for people to be aware that they have these conditions and know that lifestyle modifications and medications can control them and reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease,' said epidemiologist Cheryl D. Fryar of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, one of the study's authors."

 

WebMD (4/26, Woznicki) reported that "the study shows that about 8% of adults have undiagnosed high blood pressure, 8% have undiagnosed high cholesterol, and 3% of have undiagnosed diabetes." HealthDay (4/26, Edelson) also covered the story.