Heart disease remains leading cause of death in US, new report finds
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(NEW YORK) — Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, according to a new report.
The American Heart Association (AHA) report, published Monday in the journal Circulation, found that 941,652 Americans died from cardiovascular disease in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. That’s an increase of more than 10,000 from the just over 931,500 reported to have died from cardiovascular disease in 2021.
It also means that a person in the U.S. dies of cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds, or nearly 2,500 people every day, according to the AHA report.
“The stats are pretty sobering from this report,” Dr. Tara Narula, ABC News chief medical correspondent and a board-certified cardiologist, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday. “In fact, cardiovascular disease kills more Americans than all forms of cancer and accidents combined.”
Cancer and accidental deaths continue to remain the second and third leading causes of death, respectively, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The AHA report also found racial and ethnicity disparities, with Black Americans having the highest prevalence of cardiovascular disease. Between 2017 and 2020, 59% of non-Hispanic Black females and 58.9% of non-Hispanic Black males had some form of the disease, according to the report.
In addition, the report showed several heart disease risk factors continue to rise, with nearly 47% of American adults having high blood pressure and more than half, 57%, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.
Additionally, 72% of U.S. adults have an unhealthy weight, with nearly 42% of adults having obesity, which also is a risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease, according to the AHA report.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Dhruv Kazi, associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center In Boston, said risk factors for cardiovascular disease are expected to rise over the next several years.
“Although we have made a lot of progress against cardiovascular disease in the past few decades, there is a lot more work that remains to be done,” Kazi wrote. “If recent trends continue, hypertension and obesity will each affect more than 180million U.S. adults by 2050, whereas the prevalence of diabetes will climb to more than 80 million.”
Overall, cardiovascular-related deaths have begun plateauing after ticking upward during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the AHA. The report found death rates dropped during the survey period for all 10 leading causes of death except kidney disease, which increased by 1.5%.
The good news is that 80% of cardiovascular disease is preventable, according to Narula. Ways to lower the risk include eating a heart-healthy diet, getting regular exercise, quitting smoking, managing stress, and getting adequate sleep every night.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump is nominating a critic of COVID-19 lockdown policies to serve as the head of the National Institutes of Health.
In a statement, Trump said he has picked Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to serve as NIH director to work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — whom Trump named as his pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services — to direct the nation’s medical research.
“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease,” Trump said in the statement. “Together, they will work hard to Make America Healthy Again!
Bhattacharya is a professor of health policy at Stanford University who gained notoriety for openly opposing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
In addition to a medical degree, he has a doctorate in economics.
Trump also nominated Jim O’Neil to serve as the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to “oversee all operations and improve Management, Transparency, and Accountability,” according to a statement.
LW, who asked not to show her face, is a 16-year-old transgender teenager challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical treatments that have improved her quality of life. (ABC News)
(WASHINGTON) — Medical treatments for transgender children, endorsed by major American medical associations and safely used for decades, hang in the balance at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as the Biden administration and three families with transgender teenagers ask the justices to strike down a state law banning some gender-affirming care for kids.
The landmark case — U.S. v. Skrmetti — comes from Tennessee, which is among 26 states that have moved to prohibit administration of puberty-blocking medication and hormone therapy to minors who seek to identify with, or live as, a gender identity inconsistent with his or her sex at birth.
Oral arguments mark the first time the nation’s highest court has openly considered a state law targeting transgender people. It is also the first time an openly transgender litigator, ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, will argue a case in the Supreme Court chamber.
The historic hearing thrusts the justices to the forefront of a cultural debate that has sharply divided the country and tested the limits of science and parental rights.
The outcome of the case could determine access to health care for hundreds of thousands of trans teens and more broadly influence how communities treat transgender people in hospitals, schools and on sports fields.
The government argues that Tennessee’s SB1, which was enacted in March 2023, violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause because it discriminates on the basis of sex to decide who can receive otherwise legal medical treatments available to youth.
“Put simply, an adolescent assigned female at birth cannot receive puberty blockers or testosterone to live as a male, but an adolescent assigned male at birth can,” the administration wrote in its brief to the court.
The Tennessee law expressly allows minors who are not transgender to receive gender-affirming treatments to address a “congenital defect, precocious puberty, disease, or physical injury.”
Denying discrimination, the state argues its law is a reasonable regulation of medical treatment based on its purpose, meant to protect children from potential long-term health risks and possible irreversible changes to the body.
The law’s Republican sponsors claim that contradictory scientific evidence and documented regret among some young people who have transitioned both warrant caution in developing standards of care.
The law also cites a “compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex, particularly as they undergo puberty” and preventing them from becoming “disdainful of their sex.” The government says the text proves an intent to enforce gender conformity.
Hundreds of Tennessee transgender children were receiving treatments before SB1 was enacted, legislators concluded. It is not known how many suffered alleged harm.
The plaintiffs in the case include 16-year-old LW and her parents Brian and Samantha Williams of Nashville. After several years of successful hormone therapy, LW now has to travel out of state to continue treatments she says have dramatically improved her quality of life.
“I feel normal now,” LW said in an exclusive interview with ABC News last month.
“Our state legislature had made such a big deal out of parents rights during COVID, about masks and vaccines — that that’s for parents to decide these medical decisions for their children,” noted Samantha Williams. “And then, they made this medical decision for our child.”
Nationwide, an estimated 300,000 Americans ages 13 to 17 identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Of those, nearly 100,000 live in states that have banned access to gender-affirming medical treatments for minors.
“It’s a case of enormous significance that presents fundamental questions about the scope of state power to regulate medical care for minors, of the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children… and the level of scrutiny that courts should apply to laws that discriminate against transgender people in general,” said Deepak Gutpa, a veteran Supreme Court litigator. “This is a major, major constitutional civil rights issue.”
More than 60% of Americans say they oppose law banning certain types of gender-affirming medical treatment for minors, according to Gallup.
Major American medical associations have endorsed the treatments for more than a decade as part of “individually tailored interventions” to support trans kids and affirm their sense of self. Not all transgender children seek medical care to facilitate transition to another sex.
“It needs to be part of a very deliberate process that involves medical specialists, who are expert at doing this, and, again, are following the science,” said Dr. Ben Hoffman, a pediatrician and president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “It all begins and ends with science. This is not about any sort of agenda.”
Clinical practice guidelines from the American Endocrine Society, based on more than 260 research studies, recommend the use of puberty-delaying medications and waiting until a child reaches adulthood to consider gender-affirming surgery.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says the effects of puberty blockers are not permanent if treatment is discontinued. Many effects of hormone therapy can also be reversed. Long-term risks may include fertility challenges and possible harm to bone density, but the group says those risks require further study.
In contrast to the U.S. medical establishment, several European countries, including the United Kingdom, have reversed course on the use of gender-affirming treatments as a standard-of-care for transgender children, citing insufficient scientific evidence of long-term benefits.
“When you look at the totality of the medical research, to me there is more than enough uncertainty and evidence of bad outcomes for kids who’ve gone through these treatments when they reach the later stages in life,” said Tennessee Senate GOP Leader Jack Johnson.
A federal district court sided with the plaintiffs, temporarily halting enforcement of SB1, but the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed. The panel of judges concluded Tennessee had a rational basis for enacting the law.
“Kind of the whole ballgame in the case is the debate about whether there actually is discrimination on the basis of sex,” said Erin Murphy, a Supreme Court litigator and former clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts.
“It’s really not,” Murphy argued. “To say providing testosterone to a biological boy and biological girl is the same thing because testosterone is involved — it’s a different treatment that has different risks.”
David Cole, former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the Williams family, says the court’s conservative majority will have to confront the legacy of its decision.
“I think there’s no question in 25 years that the court will have recognized that treating people differently because their gender identity is sex discrimination,” Cole said.
“The question is whether the court wants to write a decision will be overturned, you know, in the course of the next 10 years or 15 years,” he said, “or whether it wants to recognize what is going on, which is sex discrimination.”
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June 2025.
(FRESNO, CA) — After bird flu was detected in a retail sample of raw milk produced and packaged by Raw Farm, LLC, the California Department of Public Health warned consumers on Sunday to avoid consuming any from the same lot.
At the state’s request, the Fresno County-based company also issued a voluntary recall of the affected product: cream top, whole raw milk from lot No. 20241109 with a “best by” date of Nov. 27.
Anyone in possession of the product will be able to pursue a refund from the location where the item was originally purchased.
Retailers have also been notified to take affected products off of their shelves.
The CDPH has also emphasized that pasteurized milk remains safe to drink.
Most cases of bird flu discovered in humans in the current outbreak are with people that worked directly with birds or cows. There are not any cases known to be associated with raw milk consumption, but the risks associated with raw milks have been long established.
The Food and Drug Administration has previously warned of the possible dangers of drinking raw milk.
In a statement from May 2024, it warned, “Raw milk can carry dangerous germs such as Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, Campylobacter, and others that cause foodborne illness, often called ‘food poisoning.'”
Raw milk products do not undergo pasteurization, which is a heating process that kills bacteria and viruses.
Pasteurized milk and dairy products, however, are safe to consume because the heating process kills pathogens that can cause illness — including bird flu.
However, raw milk does have its proponents, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Last month, in a post on X, called the FDA’s “aggressive suppression” of it part of the agency’s “war on health.”
In November, President-elect Donald Trump selected RFK Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. The appointment requires Senate confirmation.
As of Sunday evening, no illnesses had been reported in association with the finding of bird flu in the single lot of raw milk.
The contaminated sample was discovered as part of routine testing performed by the County of Santa Clara Public Health Laboratory, which tests raw milk products from retail stores as a second line of consumer protection. The finding was then verified by the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System.
In response to the positive test, the California Department of Food and Agriculture provided onsite testing at the Raw Farms facilities, which were negative for bird flu. CFDA will continue testing raw milk banks twice per week.
ABC News’ Claire E. Strindberg contributed to this report.
