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(Ivanhoe Newswire) – A new study focusing on heart disease has both good and bad news. Overall, the death rate from heart disease fell by 52 percent in men and 49 percent in women from 1980 to 2002. However, if you look at the numbers by age, study authors say that’s where you find the bad news. The death rate in young men and women between the ages of 35 to 54 has stayed the same in men and increased slightly in young women.

“Young adults should take stock of their lifestyles,” says Earl S. Ford, MD, MPH, a medical officer in the U.S. Public Men’s health Service. “If you’re smoking, you should quit. If you’re doing less than 30 minutes of physical activity per day, it’s time to find ways to be more active. If you need to lose weight, you should burn more calories than you take in.”

For the research, investigators analyzed U.S. vital statistics data between 1980 and 2002 for people 35 years and older. They found in young men, the annual death rate from heart disease fell in the 1980s, slowed in the 1990s and leveled off from 2000 to 2002. In young women, the rate fell by 5 percent in the 1980s, slowed to 1.2 percent in the 1990s, but increased to 1.5 percent from 2000 – 2002. They also say the increase was significant particularly in women aged 35 to 44.

“The take-home message is that heart disease has not gone away, continues to be a problem and could become a greater problem if Americans fail to pay attention to known warning signs like overweight and obesity, and lack of exercise,” says Dr. Ford.

SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2007

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Medical News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.