Leading in deaths
From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
The most likely disease to kill Americans is heart disease. But it wasn’t always like this. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Barbara Bowman has the situation and the history:
“About 800,000 people in the U.S. die of heart disease every year. About 100 years ago, in the early 1900s, heart disease was very rare. By 1950, it was the leading cause of death.”
What changed, largely, was how people lived – which means that many heart disease deaths could be prevented by changing how we live. Bowman says the most important prevention steps people can take are to not smoke, to be moderately physically active at least 30 minutes on most days, and to eat more fruits and vegetables and less sodium – notably in salt – and saturated fats.
Learn more at healthfinder.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.