The group's Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics 2007 Update will be published online in Thursday's edition of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The compilation of data from multiple governmental and private sources indicate that, in some areas, there is improvement, but there remains trouble on the horizon.

"We seem to be pretty good in being able to treat cardiovascular disease," Raymond Gibbons, professor of medicine at the Mayo School of Medicine in Rochester, Minn., told United Press International Thursday.

"Where there is a potential for problems is in the rates of diabetes and obesity and obesity in children," said Gibbons, also president of AHA.

A new program initiated by the group, called Get with the Guidelines, encourages doctors to treat patients with heart disease under evidence-based treatment algorithms. Data gleaned in the reports show that better than 85 percent of patients are getting state-of-the-art level care.

"These programs are showing positive indicators for improvement," said Wayne Rosamond, chair of AHA's Statistics Committee which prepared the update. "One of the ways to improve the quality of care is to have a good system to monitor the care that is given; then you have an ongoing way to

identify areas that you want to improve. Get With The Guidelines is a way to follow quality over time and identify areas of improvement."

Using data from 74,143 patients who were admitted to 376 participating hospitals in 2005, the composite quality of care based on several performance measures was 86.3 percent. Performance measures include whether patients received aspirin, cholesterol-lowering drugs and other medications when they were discharged from the hospital and whether they were counseled to quit smoking. Similar programs showed an 88 compliance rate in treatment of stroke and an 82.5 percent compliance rate in the treatment of heart failure.

Cardiovascular diseases include heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, heart failure and congenital cardiovascular defects. Counting only heart disease, this has been the leading cause of death in the United States every year since 1900, except during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.

In the area of obesity, the new statistics show that control of diet has been flagging, Gibbons noted. The report said:

-- Nearly 14 percent of preschool children, ages 2 to 5, were overweight in 2003 to 2004, up from 10.3 percent in 1999 to 2000.

-- The prevalence of overweight in children ages 6 to 11 increased from 4 percent in 1971 to 1974, to 17.5 percent in 2001 to 2004.

-- In adolescents ages 12 to 19, prevalence increased from 6.1 percent to 17 percent.

-- The age-adjusted prevalence of overweight and obesity increased from 64.5 percent in 1999 to 2000, to 66.3 percent in 2003 to 2004.

Among the other statistics in the AHA report:

-- The state with the lowest cardiovascular death rate was Minnesota with 221.2 deaths per 100,000 population, while Mississippi had the highest death rate of 405.9 deaths per 100,000. Gibbons said it was not coincidental that Mississippi was among the leading states in rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.

-- Hawaii carries the lowest risk of death due to coronary heart disease with 96 death per 100,000, while Oklahoma has the highest rate, 228.1 per 100,000.

-- Stroke rates fell overall by 20.4 percent between 1994 and 2004 and despite increases in population the actual number of U.S. stroke deaths declined 2.1 percent over the same period.

-- About one in three American adults have high blood pressure and another third of the rest of the population are at risk of high blood pressure with a condition known as pre-hypertension.

-- Less than one-fourth of Americans eat five or more portions of fruit sand vegetables a day -- a level that is known to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease, and the numbers of children eating fruits and vegetables daily is declining.

-- Smoking continues to decline in the United States. The percentage of homes with children under age 7 in which someone regularly smokes decreased from 29 percent in 1994 to 11 percent in 2004.

Overall, 20.6 percent of American adults are smokers. The highest percentage was in Kentucky with 28.7 percent and the lowest was in Utah with 11.5 percent.

On average, male smokers die 13.2 years earlier than male nonsmokers and female smokers die 14.5 years earlier than female nonsmokers. Smokers are twice as likely to have a stroke, two to four times as likely to develop coronary heart disease and more than 10 times as likely to develop peripheral vascular disease as nonsmokers.

"The message in these statistics," Gibbons told UPI, "is that heart disease remains a problem. We all still need to keep working at it."

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