Here’s a clear, modern, and engaging rewrite of your passage, maintaining the key facts while improving flow and readability:
Heart Disease and Stroke
![Image: Female physician listens to senior patient's heart — apomares / E+ / Getty Images]
After World War II, heart attacks claimed the lives of thousands of middle-aged Americans—many of them veterans. But thanks to decades of NIH-funded research, the tide began to turn. The groundbreaking Framingham Heart Study, launched in the 1940s, uncovered major risk factors for heart disease: smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Follow-up studies proved that these risks could be reduced with medications like statins and blood pressure drugs, as well as lifestyle changes such as healthy eating, exercise, and quitting smoking. As a result, heart disease deaths have dropped nearly 70% since 1969.
Despite that progress, stroke remains a serious threat, striking someone in the U.S. every 40 seconds. In the mid-1990s, NIH-backed research led to the approval of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a drug that can dissolve clots when given quickly after a stroke begins. More recently, procedures using balloon catheters to remove brain clots have further improved outcomes for stroke patients. Public education efforts like NIH’s Know Stroke campaign have also raised awareness about recognizing stroke symptoms and the urgency of immediate medical care.
Still, heart disease and stroke continue to be the leading causes of death for both men and women in the U.S. That’s why NIH is now investing in precision medicine—research that combines genetics, lifestyle, imaging, and environmental data to better predict, prevent, and treat these conditions on a personal level.
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