Safety
Using your head when it comes to your heart
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) claims nearly a million lives a year in the U.S.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) claims nearly a million lives a year in the U.S. (958,775 in 1999, the last year for which definitive figures are available). That works out to be one out of every 2.5 deaths, which equates to more than 2,600 CVD deaths a day or one every 33 sec.

Since 1900, CVD has been the number-one killer in the U.S. in every year except 1918, when the grievous battlefield losses of World War I surpassed it. Ranked against the other leading causes of death in the U.S., cardiac death leads cancer, its closest competitor, two to one. The leading causes of American death after cancer (with 549,838 deaths annually) are accidents (97,860), Alzheimer’s disease (44,536) and AIDS (14,802).