Why heart disease spiked and then dropped in America
The epidemic of the 20(th) century: coronary heart disease.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
A long time ago, few people died of heart disease. Then, as people smoked more and ate worse foods, more got clogged arteries and died. After the 1960s, people started quitting smoking, eating better, and hospitals got better at treating heart attacks, so fewer people died.
Surprising Findings
Heart disease may have been the only century in which it was the #1 cause of death in America.
People assume heart disease has always been top killer, but this study suggests it was uniquely dominant in the 20th century—possibly never before or after.
Practical Takeaways
Reduce your risk by quitting smoking and eating whole foods to lower cholesterol—this study shows these habits directly reduced heart disease deaths nationwide.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
A long time ago, few people died of heart disease. Then, as people smoked more and ate worse foods, more got clogged arteries and died. After the 1960s, people started quitting smoking, eating better, and hospitals got better at treating heart attacks, so fewer people died.
Surprising Findings
Heart disease may have been the only century in which it was the #1 cause of death in America.
People assume heart disease has always been top killer, but this study suggests it was uniquely dominant in the 20th century—possibly never before or after.
Practical Takeaways
Reduce your risk by quitting smoking and eating whole foods to lower cholesterol—this study shows these habits directly reduced heart disease deaths nationwide.
Publication
Journal
The American journal of medicine
Year
2014
Authors
J. Dalen, J. Alpert, R. Goldberg, R. Weinstein
Related Content
Claims (10)
Coronary heart disease mortality increased 15-fold between 1921 and 1945 in industrialized nations, coinciding with the adoption of industrialized diets high in refined carbohydrates and processed fats.
After heart disease killed the most people in the 1960s, fewer people started dying from it because fewer had heart attacks, and when they did, they were less likely to die — plus, fewer people suddenly dropped dead at home.
When hospitals got better at treating heart attacks after the 1960s, fewer people died from them.
In the middle of the 1900s, more people in the U.S. started dying from heart disease than anything else, because their heart arteries were getting clogged up — and autopsies showed this was happening more often than before.
Back in the early to mid-1900s, more people died of heart disease, and experts think this was because people started smoking more and eating foods that raised the bad cholesterol in their blood.