USA : Americans are dying of heart failure today at a higher rate than they did in 1999, reversing years of progress in reducing the death rate.
That is the stark message of a new JAMA Cardiology study, which finds that the current mortality rate from heart failure is 3% higher than it was 25 years ago. Based on data from death certificates, the study says, the mortality rate fell significantly from 1999 to 2009, then plateaued for a few years before sharply increasing from 2012 to 2019. During the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the latest year for which data is available, heart failure deaths accelerated.
“These data are striking,” said Veronique Roger, MD, MPH, chief of the epidemiology and community health branch of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. “They really constitute an urgent call for action to reverse this trend.”
Roger, who was not involved in the study, noted that during the 2000s, the mortality rate from cardiovascular disease declined and that now it has leveled off, largely because of the burst in deaths attributed to heart failure. “This paper shows that not only are we are not making progress, but our gains are being eroded. So it’s a major deal.”
According to the National Institutes of Health, about 6.7 million Americans have heart failure today. That’s just a snapshot in time, of course: About 1 in 4 Americans will develop heart failure during their lifetimes, the NIH said. About half of those with the condition die within 5 years after diagnosis.
People who are 65 or older have a far greater chance of dying of heart failure than younger people do. However, the relative increase in the death rate was most marked among younger Americans, according to the study. Among people younger than 45, there was a ninefold rise in heart failure deaths from 2012 to 2021, and there was almost a fourfold increase among people aged 45-64.
Comorbidities Lead to Heart Failure
In the view of study co-author Marat Fudim, MD, an associate professor of cardiology at Duke University in Durham, NC, the increase in heart failure deaths among younger people is probably related to the fact that obesity and diabetes have become more prevalent among young adults. It’s not surprising, he said, that an increasing number of people with these disorders develop heart failure in middle age.
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