Casey Means on heart disease: what the evidence says · JRE #2210
SUBJECT: HEART DISEASE
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
Of course, we've got heart disease, which is almost totally preventable as the leading cause of death in the United States, killing around 800,000 people per year.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Heart disease is correctly identified as the leading cause of death in the United States, but the specifics are overstated. In 2022 CDC recorded 702,880 deaths from diseases of the heart (about 21 percent of all deaths, ranked number one), not around 800,000. The 805,000 figure Means appears to invoke is the estimated number of Americans who have a heart attack each year, not the annual death toll. The claim that it is almost totally preventable also overstates the evidence: CDC estimated that roughly 34 percent of premature heart disease deaths are preventable, and while large studies attribute a high share of cardiovascular disease to modifiable risk factors (the PURE cohort attributed over 70 percent of CVD cases and deaths to modifiable factors), a substantial portion of deaths, including those at older ages, is not readily preventable, so almost totally is an exaggeration.