Shocking Report Finds Only 1 in 2,000 Americans Heart Healthy

. . . surely we can do better than this! Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh analyzed data on 1,933 men and women, average age 59, to see if they met seven criteria for heart health: (1) no smoking (2) adequate physical activity (3) healthy diet (4) not overweight (5) total cholesterol lower than 200 (6) blood pressure at or below 120/80 (7) fasting blood glucose under 100 Only one person met all seven criteria! Less than 10% of the group (about 193 people) met at least five. Do you find this as shocking as I do? The one criteria I have a problem with is the usual misplaced obsession with cholesterol (see my article "The Cholesterol Myth" in the Beyond Health Article Archives), but other than that, any healthy person should have no trouble meeting these criteria. And only one in almost two thousand did.  Bambs C. Low prevalence of "ideal cardiovascular health" in a community-based population: the heart strategies concentrating on risk evaluation (Heart SCORE) study. Circulation. 2011 March 1;123(8):850-857.