Data Source: Published in the July 12 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology
A news alert published on July 4th while most Americans were sitting down to hot dogs, hamburgers and plenty of desserts and beverages should light off public health fireworks and be an alarm to address preventative healthcare around the nation’s continued declining metabolic health.
EurekAlert news release reported on research including contributions from Tufts in Boston that found most U.S. adults rate poorly across five components of heart and metabolic health, with clear racial disparities. This data analyzed trends in adiposity, blood glucose, blood lipids, blood pressure and clinical CVD history.
The report headline reads
“Only seven percent of U.S. adults have good cardiometabolic health.”
July 12 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology
This data analyzed was from 55,081 U.S. adults age 20+ years from the 10 most recent cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 1999-2000 to 2017-2018).
[Personal Sidebar} This disturbing health data has been headed in the wrong direction for many years. I wrote about this crisis in my book, Body in Balance in 2015. Since then more NHANES data reviewed in this post shows we are in a health crisis as a nation. My concern is this data does not even account for the worsening national health effect we’ll be realizing from the pandemic aftermath.
Conclusions
Cardiometabolic health among U.S. adults significantly declined between 1999-2000 and 2017-2018, with only 6.8% having optimal cardiometabolic health by 2017-2018, and with significant differences by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and education.
These findings renew the call for clinical, public health, and policy interventions to improve cardiometabolic health and health equity in the United States.
This at a time when seeking medical care is becoming more difficult. As reported earlier this week as well, physician turnover rates are at a record high as highlighted in a July 4th article in MedCity News.
Report: Physician turnover rates are climbing as they clamor for better work-life balance
Job turnover is on the rise among physicians because their desire for flexibility and work-life balance is emboldening them to leave jobs where they feel overworked or underappreciated, according to a new report. It found that 43% of physicians switched jobs during the pandemic, 8% retired, and 3% left medicine to work in a non-clinical career.
References:
What’s the Solution?
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