ABSTRACT
A little more than a century ago, infectious diseases including smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, and yellow fever were among the major killers of Americans. Today, advancements in medicine have controlled or nearly eliminated these diseases. However, we are left to deal with seemingly more complicated killers, namely heart disease and cancer. When combined, these two diseases account for roughly 75 percent of the deaths of Americans and are also very prominent medical problems in other developed countries as well. Stroke is the number three killer of Americans and people of many developed countries. The mechanisms that lead to a stroke are often the same as those that contribute to heart disease.
