Good news – overall heart disease deaths in the U.S. have declined significantly since 1970. The bad news? According to a recent AHA study, several complex heart conditions are becoming increasingly responsible for cardiovascular deaths.
- The number one cause of death in the U.S. has been heart disease for decades, but its share of deaths has decreased by almost half (41% in 1970 vs. 21.4% in 2022).
- Much of this improvement stems from the development of new ways to treat heart attacks and ischemic heart disease, but cardio-metabolic health is on the decline.
Searching for trends in CV mortality, Stanford researchers analyzed over 50 years of CDC data, revealing dramatic changes in cardiac mortality patterns among American adults.
- On one hand, acute myocardial infarction deaths decreased by 89%.
- On the other, heart failure mortality rose 146%.
- Hypertensive heart disease mortality rose 106%.
- And arrhythmia mortality rose by a whopping 450%.
So what does this mean? It’s mostly good news, since it shows the U.S. cardiovascular care community has gotten really good at ischemic heart disease management, but there are emerging challenges stemming from more complex conditions like HF and rhythm disorders.
However, there’s one critical factor to keep in mind – obesity.
- Conditions like arrhythmias, hypertension, and heart failure are rising in parallel to the U.S. adult obesity rate which reached 40% in 2025 compared to 15% in 1970.
- While this study itself wasn’t designed to explore causality between the two, many other studies have shown the devastating effects of obesity on heart health.
Where do we go from here? The AHA’s 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Report earlier this year already gave us insights into the solution to these emerging cardiovascular conditions and it isn’t a treatment.
- With obesity and obesity-related CV deaths on the rise in the U.S., the number one cure for conditions like arrhythmias, hypertension, and heart failure is prevention.
The Takeaway
This AHA study comfortingly confirms we’ve gotten really good at treating heart attacks and managing ischemic heart disease. Unfortunately, with the rising obesity rates in the U.S., the challenges of complex CVD might need to be addressed on the population level before the patient ever gets to a cardiologist.
