“The number of Americans who report they have coronary heart disease – which includes heart attack and angina (chest pain) – continues to decline but rates vary widely from state to state and by race and ethnicity, according to a new report, Prevalence of Coronary Heart Disease — United States, 2006–2010, published October 14, 2011 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 2006 to 2010, the number of people in the United States who report they have been told by a health professional they have coronary heart disease declined overall from 6.7 percent to 6 percent. The data come from CDC′s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a phone survey conducted each year of adults aged 18 and over. The report attributes the decline to a combination of reductions in prevalence of high risk populations for heart disease such as smokers, patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure, and uncontrolled high blood cholesterol along with improvements in treatments for heart disease. Despite that decline, cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States killing roughly the same number of Americans each year as cancer, lower respiratory diseases (including pneumonia), and accidents combined.”