Under Pressure
Most people know heart disease is by far the leading killer of Americans–taking millions of lives each year. But most heart attacks and strokes occur in older people, sparing children in all but rare circumstances. And while heart attacks sometimes afflict working-age people, hospitals have become very good at treatment and prolonging lives.
Most people don’t, however, realize that heart disease is prevalent in low-income countries too. A new study found that 80% of deaths from high blood pressure were in low and middle income countries last year.* In human terms that means millions of people are dying from preventable disease in low income countries, creating a burden of disease that rivals AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and depression.
Read about it in the New York Times.
* – I found trying to put these statistics in context bewildering, but I didn’t want to leave things without context. So, for context, the best I have come to understand is something to the extent of “The point is that millions of people die in poor countries from heart disease because they have no hospitals or doctors to get help from. And that is wrong.”
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