Hit and Miss on Heart Disease
Nearly 17 million Americans have been diagnosed with coronary artery disease… millions more are at high risk. Each year, about 900,000 people suffer a heart attack, and an additional 800,000 have a stroke.
Yet, according to the heart association, only about one-third of patients being treated for high LDL cholesterol — the bad form of blood fat — achieve their goal; and only about 45% of people with high blood pressure have it controlled to levels below 140/90, as recommended. In addition, just 50% of Americans regularly get at least 30 minutes of exercise five days a week and more than one in five adults smoke. Meanwhile, two big culprits on the path toward heart attacks and strokes — diabetes and obesity — are on the rise.
Public health experts used to believe heart disease was phenomenon of modern life. However, there is an article on page A5 of the Nov. 18 Wall Street Journal, about 3,500 year-old Egyptian mummies that were found with calcified arteries. A review of 22 mummies found evidence of atherosclerosis in 88% of the ones aged 45 years and above; and 25% of the ones under 45. They posit that the mummies were upper-class Egyptians who ate diets rich in meats preserved with salt.
What this means is that the patients bear a lot of responsibility for what happens to them.
As the poem says, we are the masters of our fate: we are the captains of our soul.