Heart Beat: A vanishing breed
Imagine, for a moment, that you are sitting in a room with several thousand so-called average Americans, plucked at random from all states and all walks of life. What percentage of the people in that room has the right stuff to help ward off a heart attack or stroke or keep from developing some other form of cardiovascular disease? Barely 8%.
Just as alarming, the percentage of such healthy Americans has taken a turn for the worse. Once on the increase, it has been dwindling since the 1990s, even as our spending on health care continues to climb. Excess weight and inactivity appear to be driving the trend.
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