But it isn't. Controlling atherosclerosis would also sharply reduce the incidence of potentially deadly heartbeat irregularities called malignant arrhythmias, which are also generally a product of damage to the heart muscle from lack of blood supply due to blocked arteries.
Most strokes also are atherosclerosis-related.
Bluntly stated, heart-related death would be a relative novelty if people didn't give themselves atherosclerosis. Smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are all controllable, and even the genetic tendency to develop hardening of the arteries doesn't make it a doom. Detected early enough, it can be controlled, or at least treated before it becomes life- threatening. We've cut the incidence of heart-related death significantly over the past 15 to 20 years. While heart attacks are still the leading cause of death, they now account for slightly less than half of all deaths in the United States.