Heart, stroke death rates fall since 1990s

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. death rates from heart disease and stroke have fallen by about a one-fourth since the end of the 1990s thanks to improvements in medical treatment, the American Heart Association said on Tuesday.

The group used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to calculate large declines in death rates from 1999 through 2005 from these two leading killers.

The coronary heart disease death rate fell about 26 percent from about 195 per 100,000 Americans in 1999 to about 144 per 100,000 in 2005. The stroke death rate fell by about 24 percent from 62 per 100,000 in 1999 to 47 per 100,000 in 2005.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, with stroke third behind cancer, according to the CDC.

"This is a dramatic decrease in the death rate. It's very meaningful. This is the fastest rate of decrease that we've seen," Dr. Daniel Jones, president of the American Heart Association, said in a telephone interview.

Jones attributed the drop to improvements in medical treatment. He warned the progress in death rates could be fleeting if Americans also do not lower risk factors that lead to heart disease and stroke including obesity, lack of physical exercise, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

"There are some signs that if we don't reinvigorate our efforts at prevention, that we may not see this progress continue," Jones said.

Important factors behind the decline in death rates, Jones said, included the use of drugs called statins to lower cholesterol levels, as well as angioplasty and stents to keep blood vessels open and drugs to dissolve blood clots.

The development of more hospitals into primary stroke centers and the delivery of quicker and better care after a stroke have been positive developments as well, he said.

The heart association also noted that racial disparities continued, with blacks seeing a smaller drop in death rates for heart disease and particularly stroke than whites.

In 1999, the group set a goal of cutting overall heart disease and stroke death rates by a quarter by 2010. The heart disease goal has now been met, and the stroke goal nearly met.

If heart disease and stroke death rates had remained at 1999 levels, 160,000 more Americans would have died in 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available, the heart association said.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)