Heart disease is the biggest killer in the US, but for wealthy Americans cancer is set to become the top threat to their lives.
That’s according to a new report which has found that heart disease is becoming more manageable for better-off communities who have access to fresher food, better drugs and doctors.
It means that not much has changed for poorer communities, where obesity, diabetes, and stress is still climbing.
But as early as 2020, there will be a shift for high-income counties.
The report, published today in the Annals of Medicine, showed that between 2003 and 2015 heart disease and cancer deaths dropped nationwide – but more in richer areas (file image)
‘Recent data over the last two decades suggests that the US is in the midst of a new epidemiological transition within chronic disease, as the leading cause of death moves from heart disease to cancer,’ lead researcher Dr Latha Palaniappan, professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, told HealthDay.
As medicine has advanced, we have become better at preventing death from disease.
In the US, death rates have dropped around one percent a year.
But that progress is skewed towards higher income groups, according to death rates reviewed by Dr Palaniappan’s team.
The report, published today in the Annals of Medicine, showed that between 2003 and 2015 heart disease deaths dropped three percent a year (a cumulative 28 percent drop) and cancer deaths dropped 1.5 percent a year (16 percent overall).
For both diseases, the drop was sharper in higher income communities, but more so for heart disease.
Heart disease death rates dropped 30 percent among richer Americans, and 22 percent among poorer Americans. Meanwhile, cancer death rates dropped 18 percent for richer Americans and 11 percent for poorer Americans.
There are plenty of factors that feed into this shift. Cancer risk can differ depending on environmental or geographic factors, genetic ones, racial ones, or societal ones.
However, it sheds light on some stubborn divisions that may be hampering uniform approaches to lowering heart disease risk in a country with a rapidly ageing population of people who’ve grown up with low activity rates, high rates of obesity, and a diet saturated in sugars, fats and processed meats.