young at heart?

Vegetarian Times, June, 2001 by Maria Rabat

An old killer is making inroads with a younger crowd, and health experts fear that the casualties may continue to escalate. In the 1990s, the death rate from cardiac arrest among 15- to 34-year-old Americans rose 10 percent for men and a frightening 32 percent for women. While heart attacks are still rare for people under 35, health officials are nonetheless troubled because the increase represents a growing trend and is not a statistical fluke.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta conducted the first survey of cardiac arrest in young Americans, collecting data for a seven-year period beginning in 1989. Results were released during the American Heart Association's 41st annual conference on cardiovascular disease and prevention held in San Antonio this past February.

The CDC reported that 23,320 young adults died from sudden cardiac death (SCD) during that time, almost three-quarters of them men. The numbers also revealed disturbing gender and racial disparities. The death rate is twice as great in men than in women and three times greater among African-Americans than in whites of both sexes.

Lead author Zhi-Jie Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., places the blame on poor lifestyle choices. "Smoking has increased among high schoolers, obesity has increased in every age group, and diabetes is on the rise," he says. According to the latest statistics, 12 percent of 20-year-olds are considered obese (as opposed to 7 percent 10 years ago) and 19 percent of thirty-somethings fall into the same category (compared with 11 percent last decade). Add poor diet and lack of exercise--factors prevalent for a majority in the 15- to 34-year-old group--and it's no wonder that the death rates are climbing.

The CDC will continue to monitor the numbers, which, according to Zheng, have set off shock waves within the medical community. "This is the first report of its kind. No other industrial country has ever measured SCD incidence for such a young population."