While mental
illness is our greatest socioeconomic problem. cancer our greatest enigma. arthritis and
rheumatism our greatest cripplers, and accidents our greatest disgrace. atherosclerosis is
by far our greatest killer.
- Dr. R.L. Holman |
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Cancer
& Heart Disease:
The 20th
Century Killers
In the U.S. over 40
million men and women suffer from symptoms of heart disease. It is America's number one
killer, taking the lives of three quarters of a million men and women each and every year.
That's the equivalent of 10 jet airliners crashing every single day and killing all 200
passengers on board each airliner.
Yes, the tragic reality is that in this country alone over
2,000 men and women per day... 83 people per hour . . one person every 45 seconds - . dies
of heart disease - constituting nearly half of all deaths in the U.S.
Worse yet, more than twice that
many American men and women suffer painful and disabling heart attacks each year. In men,
half die and half survive their first heart attack. Most of those men who die never even
make it to the hospital. In women, the survival rate for the first heart attack is
slightly higher yet only 15% of them live longer than eight to 12 years afterward. and a
full 28% of those women who do die from cardiovascular disease are under 55 years of age!
Interestingly enough, the heart attack is a relatively new
phenomenon in medical history. According to the book, Secrets to a Healthy Heart and Low
Cholesterol (Fischer Publishing), the first heart attack to be medically recorded was in
1912. "The attack was suffered by a banker from Chicago, Illinois. The diagnosis met
with ridicule from many medical professionals even though an autopsy reported clearly
confirmed the cause of death." Since that time, of course, the diagnosis of heart
attack has become frighteningly all-too-common.
Moreover, $40 billion dollars
annually are now lost each year due to heart disease, in terms of treatment and lost
productivity, making it the second most expensive disease (only surpassed by Cancer) of
all times.
But perhaps the most sobering statistic of
all, according to the American heart Association, is this: about half of the 56.5 million
men and women who suffer from cardiovascular disease in this country at this very moment don't even know they have it. And many of them unknowingly suffer from more than one
type of cardiovascular problem!
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