Imagine an America where two out of three women suffer from cardiovascular disease. What would it look like for your mother, sister, or daughter? The American Heart Association says you won’t have to imagine for long, with its latest scientific statement painting a grim picture of women’s cardiovascular health by 2050.
- This latest statement builds on prior projections of the future CVD prevalence among women and the economic burden it could cause.
- More than 62M women in the U.S. are already living with some type of cardiovascular disease and that comes with a price tag of at least $200B.
Over the next 25 years, the report found that the number of women living with CVD in the U.S. could rise sharply, with nearly 60% facing high blood pressure by 2050, up from about 50% reported for 2020. That report also found that…
- Nearly a third of women aged 22-44 will have CVD by 2050, up from 1 in 4 currently.
- Diabetes rates for that same age group will more than double, from 6% to nearly 16%.
- More than a third of those women will have high blood pressure, an increase of +11%.
- More than 1 in 6 women will become obese, an increase of more than 18%.
The report attributes the rising cardiovascular toll on women’s health to surging rates of obesity and diabetes, but that’s like saying it’s going to rain because it’s cloudy. The truth is, it’s not just a bad weather forecast, it’s the climate.
- Several studies have already tied rising CVD risk, obesity, and diabetes rates in the U.S. to ultraprocessed foods, sedentary lifestyles, food deserts, and lacking nutrition education.
- Beyond this, other studies have already outlined the disproportionately worse outcomes that women face from diseases like CAD, AS, and ASCVD.
What the report does remind us of is the severity of the situation, because women’s health is about more than any one person, it’s the health of humanity’s future.
- Mothers struggling with diabetes, obesity, and ultimately CVD will have a harder time giving birth to healthy children and healthily raising those children.
The Takeaway
The AHA’s report is a sobering reminder of the population level burden of CVD in women and where we’re headed as a species. If we don’t reverse the current trend, it will echo through the future generations of mothers and children in America and abroad.
