After decades of steady decline, heart disease is coming back with a fervor, and often with fatal consequences. In 1948, President Harry Truman signed the National Heart Act, establishing the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The President also funded the landmark Framingham Heart Study, the world’s longest-running population study of heart disease. For the next six decades, we were winning the war on heart disease. Deaths from heart attacks, heart failure, heart rhythm disorders and related conditions fell a whopping 69% between 1950 and 2009. Lately, however, it has been bad news. “We’re looking at a crisis in terms of lowering life expectancy for the first time in decades,” cardiologist Sadiya Khan, M.D., told AARP.ORG/BULLETIN (January/February Issue, page 9). Death rates from heart disease for people between the ages of 45-64 rose 8.5% between 2010 and 2020. More recently, the COVID pandemic has taken its toll on our nation’s hearts. In 2020 and 2021, heart attack deaths increased by 21% for those 45-64 and 17.9% for those 65 and older. These are frightening statistics.
