According to a new report, heart attacks are leading to fewer deaths in the U.S. The study is published today in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

For the study, researchers analyzed data on heart attacks from thousands of people across the United States and found that first heart attacks in the U.S. have become less severe and less fatal.

 

“The reduction in severity of first-time heart attacks, along with other factors, has impacted on the declining number of deaths from coronary heart disease,” Dr. Merle Myerson, a cardiologist and lead author of the paper, said in a news release.

 

The findings add to the report released by the government last month, which shows that heart disease deaths have fallen 30 percent in the last ten years. The decline is probably due to better control of cholesterol and blood pressure, declining smoking and better medical treatments. Better care for heart attack patients also contributes to the decline.

 

The researchers suggest the time to get to the hospital after heart attack symptoms begin has not improved. According to the study, there was no significant change in the number of people who arrived at a hospital less than two hours after the first symptoms.

Cardiovascular heart disease affects one in three Americans and remains the No.1 cause of death in the United States. Overall, 829,072 Americans died of heart attack and stroke in 2006, 34.2 percent of the total, or 1 in every 2.9 deaths, the report says. Nearly 2,400 Americans die of cardiovascular disease each day, an average of one death every 37 seconds.