Even in a single year the improvement is incredible: more than half a million fewer Americans now die of heart disease each year than if we hadn’t made any improvements since the 1950s. That’s a full football stadium saved every month. How is this not a bigger story? Why are we not shouting in the streets about how incredible this is and building statues for cardiologists? I’ll tell you why: because the improvement happened too slowly for anyone to notice. The average annual decline in heart disease mortality between 1950 and 2014 was 1.5 percent per year.
