"Too many U.S. adults have a heart age years older than their real age, increasing their risk of heart disease and stroke," CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a statement. "Everybody deserves to be young - or at least not old - at heart."
The report, the first to provide population-level estimates of heart age in the United States, calculates heart age based on a person's cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, diabetes status, and body mass index as an indicator for obesity.
CDC researchers used risk factor data collected from every U.S. state and information from a heart study to determine that heart age varies by gender, region, and other factors.
They found nearly 69 million adults between the ages of 30 and 74 have a heart age older than their actual age. That's about the number of people living in the 130 largest U.S. cities combined.
Overall, the average heart age for adult men is eight years older than their chronological age, compared to five years older for women.
Although heart age exceeds chronological age for all racial and ethnic groups, it is highest among African-American men and women, whose heart age is 11 years older for both genders.
By Ruchi Singh
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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