United States: According to a recent study, over 10% of adult Americans already have heart disease, and nine out of ten are in the early, middle, or late stages of a syndrome that can progress to the condition.
The Study’s Focus
“The American populace suffers from poor cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic health,” a group led by Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Muthiah Vaduganathan says.
Researchers focused on rates of a group of connected components called cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic syndrome (CKM syndrome), which progresses over time and, if left untreated, results in heart disease. This condition has been named by the American Heart Association.
Phases of CKM Syndrome
Four phases are distinguished in CKM syndrome:
It basically divided into four phases firstly the excess fat on the body is also a risk factor to the health.
Secondly, the emergence of other metabolic risk factors like increased blood pressure and high cholesterol and diabetes could also be the thing.
Third one is the high-risk kidney disease and also predicted high risk of heart disease being diagnosed within the next 10 years.
And lastly the diagnosis of full-blown heart disease , with or without kidney disease.
However, to find out that how many Americans do fall in all these categories, the Boston’s team tracked U.S. federal health survey data for 2011 through 2020.
Research Findings
Researchers found that among persons 20 years of age and above, just 10.6% did not have some degree of CKM syndrome, as they published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on May 8.
Roughly 26% of the population was accumulating dangerously high amounts of body fat, placing them in the early stage 1 group. Of the adults, 5.4% had stage 3 CVM syndrome and nearly half (49%) had stage 2 CVM syndrome.
9.2% of individuals in the research had stage 4 heart disease, which included advanced heart failure and, in certain circumstances, heart attacks.
During the course of the nine-year research period, all of these figures remained rather constant.
Age and Risk
It should come as no surprise that the severity of CKM syndrome increased with age: the study revealed that 2.1% of participants aged 20 to 44 and 10.7% of those 65 and older had an advanced stage of the condition.
Young people were also in danger. According to Vaduganathan’s team, the majority of Americans (81.8%) between the ages of 20 and 44 were already impacted by these renal and cardiac risk factors.
Racial Disparities
It was important to include race as well, as Black Americans had a 38% higher risk of having CKM syndrome than White Americans.
In summary, the Boston researchers found that “nearly 90% of US adults met criteria for CKM syndrome (stage 1 or higher) and 15% met criteria for advanced stages, neither of which improved between 2011 and 2020.”