House Approves Resolution Aimed at Preventing Heart Disease
On February 28, the House approved, 412-0, a resolution (H. Con. Res. 52) designating February 2007 as “American Heart Month.”
Sponsored by Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA), the resolution contains a number of findings, including:
more than 72 million adult Americans have high blood pressure;
an estimated 46 million Americans put themselves at risk for heart disease every day by smoking cigarettes;
data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that more than 60 percent of American adults do not get enough physical activity, and more than 25 percent are not physically active at all; and
the American Heart Association projects that in 2007 1.2 million Americans will have a first or recurrent heart attack and 452,000 of these people will die as a result.Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) said, “The lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease for an individual aged 40 is two in three for men, and over one in two for women. Heart disease is the number one killer of women in this country, claiming over 349,000 American women each year…Experts estimate that one in two will die of heart disease or stroke, compared with one in 25 of women who will die of breast cancer…Lack of studies on women limits usefulness of research on coronary heart disease [CHD]. Although CHD causes more than 250,000 deaths in women each year, much of the research on CHD in the last 20 years has either excluded women or included very few women. As a result, many of the tests and therapies used to treat women for CHD are based on studies conducted predominantly in men and may not be as effective in women.”
