Most Adults in U.S. Have Low Risk of Heart
Disease
More than 80 percent of U.S. adults have
a less than 10-percent risk of developing heart disease in the next 10 years,
according to a report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Just
3 percent have a risk that exceeds 20 percent. "I hope that
these numbers will give physicians, researchers, health policy analysts, and
others a better idea of how coronary heart disease is distributed in the U.S.
population," lead author Dr. Earl S. Ford, from the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in Atlanta, said in a statement. The findings
are based on analysis of data from 13,769 subjects, between 20 and 79 years of
age, who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey from 1988 to 1994. Overall, 82 percent of adults had a
risk of less than 10 percent, 15 percent had a risk that fell between 10 to 20
percent, and 3 percent had a risk above 20 percent. The
proportion of subjects in the highest risk group increased with advancing age,
and men were more likely than women to be in this group. By contrast, race or
ethnicity had little effect on risk distributions. Although the
report suggests that most adults have a low 10-year risk of heart disease, a
large proportion have a high or immediate risk, Dr. Daniel S. Berman, from
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and Dr. Nathan D. Wong, from the
University of California at Irvine, note in a related editorial.
Aggressive treatment measures and public health strategies are needed to
shift the overall population risk downward, they add.
单选题
The 10-year risk of heart disease is low for most U.S. adults.