Selected Facts About Heart Disease and Stroke

Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD)

• More than 82 million American adults (39.9 million men; 42.7 million women)—greater than one in three—had one or more types of CVD. Of that total, 40.4 million were estimated to be age 60 and older.

• The average annual rates of first major cardiovascular events rise from 3 per 1,000 men at ages 35-44 to 74 per 1,000 at ages 85-94. For women, comparable rates occur 10 years later in life, and the gap narrows with advancing age.

• CVD (as the underlying cause of death) accounted for 33.6 percent of all 2,423,712 deaths, or 1 of every 3 deaths, in 2007. CVD total mention deaths accounted for about 55.4 percent of all deaths in 2007.

• Nearly 2,200 Americans die of CVD each day, an average of one death every 39 seconds. CVD claims more lives each year than cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and accidents combined.

• More than 151,000 Americans killed by CVD in 2007 were under age 65.

• The estimated direct and indirect costs of CVD for 2010 were $503.2 billion. Arrhythmias • Millions of Americans have arrhythmias (disorders of heart rhythm), which are very common in older adults.2

• About 2.2 million Americans have atrial fibrillation/atrial flutter (AF), which is more common in men than women, and the most common “serious” heart rhythm increases markedly with older age.1

• Each year, nearly 15,000 deaths and 529,000 hospital discharges are attributed to AF, and about 75,000 new cases of AF are diagnosed.

• Stroke is five times more likely in people with AF compared to those without the condition. AF is also responsible for up to 20 percent of all ischemic strokes.

Atherosclerosis

• Atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. In men, the risk increases after age 45; in women, the risk increases after age 55.2

• In 2007, atherosclerosis accounted for 8,232 deaths and 123,000 hospitalizations.1 Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)1 (Heart Attack, Angina Pectoris, or both) • In 2007, 16.3 million American adults (age 20 and older) suffered from coronary heart disease (8.8 million men; 7.5 million women). Annually, 1.255 million people are diagnosed with CHD (740,000 men; 515,000 women), which caused one of every six deaths in 2007.

• Acute coronary syndrome—defined as patients who have either acute myocardial infarction or unstable angina—accounted for 671,000 hospital discharges in 2007.

• An estimated 9 million people in the United States suffer from angina (4 million men; 5 million women), and some 500,000 new cases of stable angina occur each year.

• About every 34 seconds, an American will suffer a heart attack. The estimated annual incidence of heart attack (myocardial infarction, MI) is 610,000 new attacks and 325,000 recurrent attacks annually. In addition, some 195,000 silent first heart attacks occur annually.

• In 2007, MI caused 132,968 deaths (71,712 men; 61,256 women). The average age of a person having a first heart attack is 64.5 for men and 70.3 for women.

• The estimated direct and indirect costs of CHD for 2010 were $177.1 billion.

Heart Failure (HF)

• Of the 5.7 million adults living with heart failure (HF), 3.1 million are men and 2.6 million are women. High blood pressure precedes 75 percent of HF cases.

• Survival after HF diagnosis has improved, but the death rate remains high—50 percent of people diagnosed with HF will die within five years. In 2007, HF was listed as the underlying cause in 56,565 deaths.

• The estimated direct and indirect costs of HF for 2010 were $39.2 billion. Hypertension1 (High Blood Pressure—HBP)

• In 2008, 76.4 million adults (36.5 million men; 39.9 million women) had high blood pressure (HBP). One in three adults has HBP. About 69 percent of people who have a first heart attack, 77 percent who have a first stroke, and 74 percent with congestive heart failure have blood pressure higher than 140/90 mm Hg.

• A higher percentage of men than women have HBP until age 45. From ages 45-54, the percentage of men and women is similar. After than, a much higher percentage of women have HBP than men do.

• The prevalence of HBP in African Americans is among the highest in the world, and it is increasing. Compared with whites, blacks develop HBP earlier in life and their average blood pressures are much higher. As a result, blacks have a 1.3 times greater rate of nonfatal stroke, a 1.8 times greater rate of fatal stroke, a 1.5 times greater rate of heart disease death, and a 4.2 times greater rate of end-stage kidney disease.

• In 2007, HBP was responsible for 57,732 deaths (24,984 males; 32,748 females). That year, the death rates for HBP were 15.7 for white males, 49.2 for black males, 14.3 for white females, and 37.0 for black females.

• The estimated direct and indirect costs of HBP for 2010 were $76.6 billion.

Lipid Disorders

• Among adolescents ages 12-19, the mean total blood cholesterol level is 159.2 mg/dL. About 8.5 percent of adolescents in that age group have total cholesterol levels equal to or exceeding 200 mg/dL.

• The 2008 estimated prevalence of total cholesterol in adults age 20 and older at or above 200 mg/dL was 98.8 million (45 million men; 53.8 million women).

Peripheral Vascular Disease

• Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) affects more than 8 million Americans and is considered a leading indicator for those at risk of stroke and heart disease.

• PAD can happen to anyone, regardless of age, but it is most common in men and women over age 50 and disproportionately affects African Americans. It affects 12 percent to 20 percent of Americans age 65 and older.

• Only 10 percent of people with PAD have the classic symptoms of intermittent claudication (intermittent leg pain).

Risk Factors

• In the United States, 23.6 million children and adults—7.8% of the population—have diabetes. Of that total, 17.9 million people have been diagnosed with the disease, while 5.7 million people are undiagnosed. Each year, 1.6 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people ages 20 and older. Under age 20, 186,300, or 0.22% of all people in this age group, have diabetes. About 1 in every 400 to 600 children and adolescents has type 1 diabetes.

• Adults with diabetes have heart disease death rates about two to four times higher than adults without diabetes, and the risk for stroke is two to four times higher among people with diabetes. In 2004, heart disease was noted on 68 percent of diabetes-related death certificates among people ages 65 or older, while stroke was noted on 16 percent of diabetes-related death certificates among people in that age group.

• Nearly 10 million children and adolescents ages 6-19 are considered overweight. The prevalence of overweight in children ages 6-11 increased from 4 percent between 1971-74 to 17 percent between 2003-2006. Overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight adults. That increases to an 80 percent chance if one or both parents are overweight or obese.

• In 2006, an estimated 144.1 million U.S. adults (age 20 and older) were overweight or obese (75.5 million men; 68.6 million women), representing 66.3 percent of the adult population. That year, an estimated 71.6 million U.S. adults (age 20 and older) were obese (33.6 million men; 38 million women), representing about 32.9 percent of the adult population.

• According to one study, annual medical spending on overweight and obesity could be as high as $147 billion in 2008 dollars, which would represent almost 10 percent of U.S. health expenditures. 

• In 2009, the estimated prevalence for smoking among people ages 18 and older was 46.6 million. From 2000 to 2004, cigarette smoking resulted in an estimated 443,000 premature deaths each year from smoking-related illnesses, and about 49,000 of those deaths were from secondhand smoke.

• Cigarette smokers are two to four times more likely to develop CHD than nonsmokers and are more than 10 times as likely as nonsmokers to develop peripheral vascular disease.

• Direct medical costs ($96 billion) and lost productivity costs ($97 billion) associated with smoking total an estimated $193 billion per year between 2000 and 2004.

Stroke

• On average, someone in this country has a stroke every 40 seconds. An estimated 7 million Americans (2.8 million men; 4.2 million women) have suffered a stroke, and each year about 795,000 people experience a new or recurrent stroke.

• African Americans have almost twice the risk of first-ever stroke compared with whites. The age-adjusted stroke incidence rates at ages 45 to 84 are 6.6 per 1,000 population in black men, 3.6 in white men, 4.9 in black women and 2.3 in white women.

• Because women live longer than men and stroke occurs at older ages, more women than men die of stroke each year. Women accounted for 60.2 percent of U.S. stroke deaths in 2007.

• On average, every four minutes someone dies of a stroke. In 2008, stroke ranked as the fourth leading cause of death behind diseases of the heart, cancer and chronic lower respiratory diseases, after being the third for more than 50 years.

• The estimated direct and indirect costs of stroke for 2010 were $73.7 billion.

Thrombosis 

• Pulmonary embolism (PE) accounted for 7,097 deaths in 2007 in the United States and accounted for 146,000 hospital discharges that same year.

• In 2007, 2,381 Americans died from deep vein thrombosis (DVT).