Heart Disease More Likely to Be Fatal for Blacks Than Whites

Heart disease is more likely to be deadly in African Americans than in whites because of underlying illnesses and the decreased likelihood that blacks will receive bypass or angioplasty procedures, Duke University researchers say. The team studied 12,402 heart disease patients at Duke and found that five years later, 27% of the blacks had died, compared to 20% of the whites, even though blacks got to the doctor sooner than whites after the start of the pain and were less likely to have severely blocked arteries.

The researchers told an Orlando meeting of the American College of Cardiology that blacks were nearly twice as likely to have high blood pressure or diabetes, which make treatment more difficult, and were 40% less likely to undergo procedures to open blocked blood vessels.