Even good news can break your heart.
A new study found that the number of Americans dying from heart attacks has dropped nearly 90% over the last 50 years — but your ticker still isn’t in the clear.
Researchers are warning that three other heart conditions are on the rise, now making up a larger share of cardiovascular disease deaths than ever before.
Age-adjusted heart disease death rates among adults 25 and older from 1970 to 2022 were analyzed for the study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers found that heart disease deaths overall dropped by 66% during this five-decade period, largely driven by a sharp decline in heart attacks.
In 1970, more than half of heart disease deaths were caused by heart attacks, a form of acute ischemic heart disease.
By 2022, the age-adjusted death rate from heart attacks had fallen 89%, with fewer than one-third of heart disease deaths attributed to them.
“This evolution over the past 50 years reflects incredible successes in the way heart attacks and other types of ischemic heart disease are managed,” Dr. Sara King, a second-year internal medicine resident at Stanford University School of Medicine and the study’s first author, said in a statement.
“There have been great strides made in helping people survive initial acute cardiac events that were once considered a death sentence,” she added.
Among these advances: more bystander CPR, greater awareness of early heart attack signs, improved imaging tools and treatments and public health measures like no-smoking laws.
But don’t celebrate just yet.
“Now that people are surviving heart attacks, we are seeing a rise in other forms of heart disease,” said Dr. Latha Palaniappan, associate dean for research at Stanford’s School of Medicine and senior author of the study.
The research team found that deaths from other types of heart disease surged 81% over the same 50-year period, with three conditions driving the increase.
Deaths from arrhythmias — when the heart beats too fast, too slow or irregularly — increased the most, with the age-adjusted death rate soaring 450%.
Heart failure deaths, caused by the heart’s inability to pump enough blood, climbed 146%.
And deaths from hypertensive heart disease, linked to long-term high blood pressure, rose 106%.
These conditions are likely fueled, at least in part, by a growing number of Americans with cardiovascular risk factors, the researchers theorized.
For example, obesity rates in the US jumped from 15% in the 1970s to 40% by 2022.
Type 2 diabetes now affects almost half of all adults, while the percentage of people with high blood pressure increased from 30% in 1978 to nearly 50% in 2022.
“All of these risk factors contribute to an ongoing burden of heart disease,” Palaniappan said.
The researchers also pointed to the country’s aging population and longer life expectancy as potential factors, with more Americans living to ages when heart disease becomes more common.
“We’ve won major battles against heart attacks, however, the war against heart disease isn’t over,” King said.
“The next frontier in heart health must focus on preventing heart attacks, and also on helping people age with healthier hearts and avoiding chronic heart conditions later in life,” she added.
The American Heart Association has outlined steps to significantly lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, called “Life’s Essential 8.”
They include eating a healthier diet, managing weight, quitting smoking, getting more physical activity, improving sleep and maintaining healthy cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
