The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report showing that 200,000 deaths related to heart diseases and stroke could be prevented if we focus more on ways to convince people on quitting smoking, controlling their blood pressure and taking aspirin when prescribed by a doctor.
Researchers from the CDC led by Linda Schieb identified a decrease of 29 percent in the rate of preventable deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases between 2001 and 2009. They also noticed that the pattern differed by race, age and place of residence.
However, the researchers believe that better ways could be implemented to address the problem and save more lives.
Approximately 800,000 lives are claimed by heart diseases and strokes every year. This number accounts to 30 percent of the total deaths every year in the U.S.
"These findings are really striking. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths that don't have to happen," CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said at a press briefing on Tuesday. "It's possible for us to make rapid and substantial progress in reducing these deaths."
Another finding reveals that the preventable deaths of whites are just half of the rate of blacks, whereas these preventable deaths were concentrated in the Southern states.
One of the factors linked to the number of discrepancies is the access to health insurance, and noted that eligibility for Medicare begins at 65 years of age.
The researchers suggest that most of the heart diseasrelated and stroke-related deaths may be prevented if people focus on improving their lifestyle behaviors. Unhealthy lifestyles such as alcohol and tobacco abuse, poor diet and infrequent physical activity added up by uncontrolled high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity makes up roughly 50 percent of stroke-related mortality and 80 percent of ischemic heart disease-related mortality in high-income countries like the U.S.
The study was published in the Sept. 3 release of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
