America’s Heart

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Yesterday’s news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that deaths from cardiac disease have declined yet again is heartwarming in its own right, but also stirs in us an even greater sense of wonder at the pace of modern technological advances and the American system that makes them happen. Between 1950 and 2002, the latest year covered in yesterday’s release, mortality from heart disease declined by 59% and mortality from stroke by 69%. The CDC included a cautionary note that half of Americans aged 55 to 64 still have high blood pressure and 40% are obese, both of which are risk factors for heart problems. But that warning shouldn’t distract from the underlying good news.


There are many factors contributing to the long-term decline in mortality, and it is important not to emphasize one at the expense of the others, as a cardiologist at the New York University Medical Center, Stephen Siegel, told us yesterday. Changes in lifestyle, such as reductions in smoking and an uptick in exercise, help account for the improvement. Another significant factor is the dramatic advances in treatment for high blood pressure and cholesterol. In this area, “hygienic” improvements – smoking reduction, increased exercise, and improved diet, for example – have combined with pharmacological advances to truly remarkable effect. Thanks to the pharmaceutical industry, the past decade has witnessed significant advances in the drugs available to help prevent heart disease, such as statins for high cholesterol. Doctors also have grown savvier about how to use those drugs to best effect.


The quality and safety of “high-intensity” treatments such asstents also have advanced, improving outcomes for patients who actually suffer heart attacks along the way. Just this week, one heart-device maker, Guidant, was mulling takeover bids of $25 billion from Johnson & Johnson and from Boston Scientific. Technological advances also make it possible to treat more patients. Dr. Siegel notes that while the total number of patients undergoing cardiac surgeries may not be changing much, that is because 85-year-old patients for whom there were no treatment options before are now enjoying the benefits of heart surgery, while younger patients are able to receive less invasive procedures. “It’s been a thrill to be involved in this field for the past 25 years,” Dr. Siegel told us.


Romantics on the left, luddites, and those hostile to capitalism often pine for the good old days, but the news this week reaffirms an aphorism first uttered, at least within our hearing, by the longtime editor of the Wall Street Journal, Robert Bartley, who said, “On a net basis, modernity is good for you.” Politicians and patients may dwell on the problems of the American medical system, but the numbers are in and they suggest that for all the complaining, American ingenuity, innovation, free markets, and capitalism are driving real improvements in health.


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