US Chronic Disease Stats

Nearly half of Americans have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes.
ABC World News (4/26, story 7, 1:20, Sawyer) reported that "almost half of American adults, 45% of us, now have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes," according to researchers from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Los Angeles Times (4/27, Maugh) reports that "one in eight Americans has at least two of the conditions and one in 33 has all three, sharply increasing their risk." These "data come from the ongoing National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey." While "researchers should be able to use the new data to plan interventions, 'the main thing here is for people to be aware that they have these conditions and know that lifestyle modifications and medications can control them and reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease,' said epidemiologist Cheryl D. Fryar of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, one of the study's authors."
WebMD (4/26, Woznicki) reported that "the study shows that about 8% of adults have undiagnosed high blood pressure, 8% have undiagnosed high cholesterol, and 3% of have undiagnosed diabetes."
HealthDay (4/26, Edelson) reported that "blacks had a particularly high incidence of hypertension, 42.5 percent, compared to 29.1 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 26.1 percent of Mexican-Americans." The report indicated that "high blood cholesterol was more common among non-Hispanic whites (26.9 percent) than among blacks (21.5 percent) and Mexican-Americans (21.8 percent), while diabetes was more common among blacks (14.6 percent) and Mexican-Americans (15.3 percent) than among non-Hispanic whites (8.3 percent)."