Heart disease kills a million people a year in North America alone, and millions more worldwide. It's an epidemic. It's the equivalent of wiping out entire cities of people like San Diego or Sydney or Vancouver every year. Year after year, or to say it another way... Somebody dies at least every 32 seconds from heart disease. Six million North Americans have it right now - one in every three adults - according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Heart disease is deadly. But just what is it? It's not a disease you catch like a cold. It's a disease you eat. Improper diet causes a sludge called plaque to slowly clog up your arteries, stopping the flow of vital oxygen and nutrients to your heart muscles. When your arteries finally plug up, you have a heart attack. This happens to over 1.5 million people a year. For most of them, it's a total surprise. They had no idea their arteries were clogged. 1/3 of them will die on the way to the hospital, with no second chance, no time to say goodbye. Those who do survive suffer through expensive and painful therapies. These days, a coronary bypass surgery costs about $25,000.
And all of this expense and pain and death may be unnecessary.
So how can you decrease the risk of heart disease?
Odds are, you probably already have some degree of heart disease. Heart disease starts early. By age 16, young Americans already have some degree of blockage in the crucial arteries that supply the heart with blood. But, here's the good news. We have made significant progress in the war on heart disease. Since 1950, we've cut the death rate in half.
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