Most Adults in U. S. Have Low Risk of Heart Disease More than 80 percent of US adults have a less than 10 percent risk of developing heart disease in the next 10 years, according to a report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Just 3 percent have a risk that exceeds 20 percent. "I hope that these numbers will give physicians, researchers, health policy analysts, and others a better idea of how coronary heart disease is distributed in the US population, " lead author Dr. Earl S. Ford, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said in a statement. The findings are based on analysis of data from 13,769 subjects, between 20 and 79 years of age, who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1988 to 1994. Overall, 82 percent of adults had a risk of less than 10 percent, 15 percent had a risk that fell between 10 to 20 percent, and 3 percent had a risk above 20 percent. The proportion of subjects in the highest risk group increased with advancing age, and men were more likely than women to be in this group. By contrast, race or ethnicity had little effect on risk distributions. Although the report suggests that most adults have a low 10-year risk of heart disease, a large proportion have a high or immediate risk, Dr. Daniel S. Berman, from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and Dr. Nathan D. Wong, from the University of California at Irvine, note in a related editorial. Aggressive treatment measures and public health strategies are needed to shift the overall population risk downward, they add. Elderly people have a higher risk of heart disease than younger people.

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