
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 26, 1993                   TAG: 9308260145
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Los Angeles Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BLACK HEART TROUBLE UNEXPLAINED

Researchers report today that blacks are significantly more likely to suffer and die from sudden heart failure than whites, and that whites diagnosed with heart disease are far more likely to undergo surgery to correct it than blacks.

The findings, published in separate articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, highlight striking racial differences that, in the case of the second study, cannot be attributed to socioeconomic factors such as ability to pay or access to medical care.

One explanation, experts say, is that prejudice influences physicians' judgment, preventing white doctors from recommending certain procedures to black patients, or patients from accepting them.

Only 3 percent of the nation's doctors are black.

"We are dependent on the majority of the population for health services," said Dr. Edward S. Cooper, a prominent black physician and past president of the American Heart Association.

The studies send the message to health-care reformers that financial barriers are not the sole reason some Americans don't get quality medical care.

Each of the studies published today breaks new ground. The first, conducted at the University of Chicago, offers the first large-scale comparison of cardiac arrest - a sudden and most often fatal stoppage of the heart - among blacks and whites. It found that blacks were twice as likely as whites to suffer cardiac arrest, and more than three times as likely to die of it.

The second study was a nationwide examination of nearly 430,000 Veterans Administration hospital patients diagnosed with heart disease. It found that even when finances are not a consideration, whites were two and three times as likely as blacks to undergo invasive surgical procedures such as angioplasty or coronary artery bypass surgery.

The findings add to a well-documented body of research that shows blacks in the United States die of cardiovascular disease faster than whites. In 1989, the most recent year for which figures are available, rates of heart disease were 39 percent higher in black men than white men, and 68 percent higher in black women than white women.

Scientists do not fully understand the reasons for this, and are investigating biological causes.

Sudden cardiac arrest accounts for about 300,000 deaths each year - nearly 15 percent of all deaths in America.

There are a variety of possible explanations for the disparity, among them differences in physiology as well as diet and other health habits, such as smoking, alcohol intake and exercise.

by CNB