Blog # 10 The Hidden Epidemic

According to the PBS document, The Hidden Epidemic: Heart disease in America, heart disease is known as the “silent killer”. It is the number one cause of death in men and women and 1 out 2 men and 2 out of 3 women will develop heart disease.  The documentary made me really start thinking about my own family and our health.  The beginning was about a young family who lost the Dad just two weeks after his baby daughter was born.  The father was young, only 44 years old and had no previous health conditions or signs of heart disease.  He died of a massive heart attack in his sleep.  That is scary!  That could happen to anyone especially if you do not know your heart health scores (cholesterol and blood pressure) and especially if you smoke.   My husband and I do not smoke and do not have high blood pressure, but we have never had our cholesterol checked.  We are not obese but each of us could lose a few pounds and there is some family history of heart disease.  So we really need to have blood test to check our cholesterol levels.  I wish they would make it part of the well checkups or physicals, but it is not.  Why don’t they?  I would think it would save money in the long run!

The documentary discussed how the United States has been researching heart disease for 60 years, which I thought was interesting.  The US Public Health service started studying a group of 5,209 healthy, middle class people in a small town in Framingham, Massachusetts.  They studied their health history, diet, exercise, blood pressure, and took some initial blood test.  Researches followed them for 20 years and watched how the sedentary life style changes affected the heart and discovered several risk factors of heart disease: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking. 

This made me think of how much more our life styles have changed from this study. How our lives have become less physically demanding and more stressful on our bodies!  It is very scary, especially not knowing about our own heart, because we could be next!

Reference

Elizabeth Arledge. (2007). WGBH Boston for PBS. The Hidden Epidemic: Heart Disease in America.