The U.S. heart attack mortality rate has dropped by 89% in the past 50 years, according to data published June 25 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
At the same time, death rates from other types of heart disease, such as arrhythmia, heart failure and hypertensive heart disease, have increased.
“This evolution over the past 50 years reflects incredible successes in the way heart attacks and other types of ischemic heart disease are managed,” Sara King, MD, an internal medicine resident at Stanford (Calif.) School of Medicine and lead author of the study, said in a June 25 news release from the American Heart Association. “However, the substantial increase in deaths from other types of heart conditions, including heart failure and arrhythmias, poses emerging challenges the medical community must address.”
Here are five things to know from the study:
- Researchers used CDC data from between 1970 and 2022 to analyze the age-adjusted heart disease death rates of adults aged 25 and older.
- In addition to the 89% decrease in heart attack deaths, the heart disease death rates overall dropped 66% during the study time period.
- Heart disease deaths accounted for 41% of total deaths in 1970, with 54% of those deaths attributed to heart attack.
More than half a century later, heart disease deaths account for 24% of total deaths in 2022, with 29% of those deaths attributed to heart attack.
- The death rates of all other types of heart disease increased by 81% over the study period, making up 9% of all heart disease deaths in 1970 and 47% in 2022.
- The death rate for arrhythmia increased by 450% though it only comprised about 4% of heart disease deaths in 2022.
Deaths from heart failure increased by 146% and deaths from hypertensive heart disease increased by 106% between 1970 and 2022.
Read the full study, including what researchers believe contributed to the trends, here.
