Why So Many of Us Die of Heart Disease
Evolution doomed us to have vital organs fail. For years, experts failed us, too.
The Assyrians treated the “hard-pulse disease” with leeches. The Roman scholar Cornelius Celsus recommended bleeding, and the ancient Greeks cupped the spine to draw out animal spirits.
Centuries later, heart disease remains America’s number one killer, even though medical advances have made it so that many more people can survive heart attacks. Some parts of the country are especially hard-hit: In areas of Appalachia, more people are dying of heart disease now than were in 1980.
Haider Warraich, a fellow in cardiovascular medicine at the Duke University Medical Center (and an occasional ), is at work on a book about how heart disease came to be such a big threat to humanity.
