US Heart Disease Costs To Rise In 2010
According to the American Heart Association, heart disease and stroke will cost the U.S. an estimated total of $503.2 billion next year.
An online update published in the journal Circulation reports that this amount includes health care costs and lost productivity due to death and disease.
According to Reuters Health, the association says obesity and other factors are only expected to make health costs increase.
Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, head of the American Heart Association Statistics Committee, said, "Current statistical data show Americans to be on average overweight, physically inactive and eating a diet that is too high in calories, sodium, fat and sugar."
Lloyd-Jones, a cardiologist at Northwestern University in Chicago, also said, "One reason it will cost us more to treat tomorrow’s patients is because there will be more of them if current trends continue."
There are too many people not taking cholesterol-lowering medicines that could lower their risk, he added.
A 2008 national survey showed 59 percent of adults described themselves as physically inactive.
The report also says fewer than half of people with heart disease symptoms are receiving cholesterol-lowering drugs, like statins.
According to WHO, Heart disease is the No. 1 in the United States and in most industrialized countries. Cardiovascular diseases and diabetes accounted for 32 percent of all deaths globally in 2005.
The association said the number of heart operations and procedures went up 33 percent from 1996 to 2006, from 5.4 million to 7.2 million.
The American Heart Association hopes to reduce deaths in the U.S. from heart disease and stroke by 20 percent by 2020.
Lloyd-Jones said, "To reach the 2020 goals, Americans must start making healthier lifestyle choices."
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