Graehm Gray: Almost Half of All Americans Have Either High Cholesterol, Diabetes or High Blood Pressure!
The headlines hit every newspaper, radio and television news program all across our country: 45% of all Americans have high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol. These are the results of the most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. 13% of American adults had at least two of these conditions and 3% had all three! 15% of American adults had one of these problems undiagnosed-yes-they are walking around with diabetes, elevated blood pressure or high cholesterol and they don’t even know it! Non-Hispanic African-Americans were more likely than non-Hispanic white and Mexican-Americans to have at least one of the three conditions. And even more revealing, non-Hispanic African-Americans were more likely to have all three conditions compared with non-Hispanic white Americans. As we all know, all three conditions are associated with heart disease-the leading cause of death in the United States. According to additional data from the Centers For Disease Control And prevention (CDC), African-Americans had a 51% higher prevalence of obesity compared with whites. It’s all starting to make more sense. In fact a recent research projection made by Anirban Basu, PhD of the University of Chicago indicates that “obesity rates across all age categories in the U.S. adult population will remain stable for the next 10 years. However young African American adults ages 18-39, children-mainly boys ages 6-9 and ...
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