The American Heart Association (AHA) published a report that shows heart disease remains the top cause of death in the United States.
The report, published on Monday in the journal Circulation, found that 941,652 Americans succumbed to cardiovascular disease in 2022, the most recent year with available data. That represents a jump of over 10,000 deaths from just one year prior.
To put the numbers in perspective, around 2,500 people die every day in the United States from heart disease. That is equivalent to a death every 34 seconds, says the AHA.
“The stats are pretty sobering from this report… In fact, cardiovascular disease kills more Americans than all forms of cancer and accidents combined,” Dr. Tara Narula, ABC News chief medical correspondent and a board-certified cardiologist, said on ABC’s Good Morning America on January 27, per ABC.
The latest report also highlighted that certain heart disease risk factors continue to trend higher. Nearly half of all American adults possess high blood pressure, and more than half have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, a number which itself may be severely underestimated according to recent findings.
“Although we have made a lot of progress against cardiovascular disease in the past few decades, there is a lot more work that remains to be done,” said Dr. Dhruv Kazi, associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
“If recent trends continue, hypertension and obesity will each affect more than 180 million U.S. adults by 2050, whereas the prevalence of diabetes will climb to more than 80 million.”
A study published last year concluded that almost nine out of 10 American adults are at risk of developing heart disease.
While genetics appear to play a role, there are measures you can take to help lower your chances of developing the disease. Dr. Narula says that 80% of cardiovascular disease is preventable by eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, managing stress, getting sufficient sleep, and avoiding smoking.
One study from 2023 found that older Americans who walk between 6,000 to 9,000 steps per day, around three to four miles, can cut their chance of stroke and heart attack by upwards of 50%.
More recently, a study found that a blood test may be able to predict heart disease in women years before any medical issues manifest.
In another study, researchers found that the sister drug to the popular weight loss medication Ozempic has been linked to reduced heart risks. The diabetes pull known as Rybelsus was shown to lower the likelihood of suffering a cardiovascular event by 14% in specific demographics.