Deaths from Heart Attacks Have Decreased by Nearly 90% Over the Past 50 Years, but It's Not All Good News

Deaths from heart attacks have gone down over the last 50 years, according to a new study.

A study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that deaths from heart attacks have “declined by nearly 90%” over the last 50 years and that heart disease death rates have dropped by 66%, according to a press release.

The study focused on people over the age of 25, between the years of 1970 to 2022. The study found that heart disease accounted for about 31% of all deaths and rates “decreased substantially, from 41% of total deaths in 1970 to 24% of total deaths in 2022.”

More than half or 54% of people studied in 1970 died of a heart attack, while the “age-adjusted death rate decreased 89% by 2022” and only 29% of people died from a heart attack in that year. 

The study noted that the decrease could be attributed to advances in technology over the 52 years, which have helped lower the risk of heart attacks, including the improvement of cardiac imaging and “coronary stenting to open blocked heart arteries.” The study also noted that the development of “medical therapies” like “thrombolytics and aspirin to reduce blockages” have also helped, among other things. 

“Over the past 50 years, our understanding of heart disease, what causes it and how we treat it has evolved considerably. That’s especially true in how we address acute cardiac events that may appear to come on suddenly,” the study’s first author, Sara King, M.D. said in the release.

However, Americans aren’t out of the woods, as the study noted that heart disease is still the leading cause of death in the U.S. This is partially due to the fact that while less people are having fatal heart attacks, people are dying from other kinds of heart disease, including heart failure, arrhythmias and hypertensive heart disease or high blood pressure.

The study found that deaths from these three types of heart diseases “increased by 81%” between 1970 and 2022. In the former year, it only accounted for 9% of deaths, while in the latter, it accounted for “47% of all heart disease deaths.”

“This distribution shift in the types of heart disease people were dying from the most was very interesting to us,” Dr. King said.

“This evolution over the past 50 years reflects incredible successes in the way heart attacks and other types of ischemic heart disease are managed,” she continued. “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.”

Arrhythmias — which occur when “electrical impulses to the heart may be too fast, too slow or erratic, causing an irregular heartbeat” — in particular, had the largest increase in deaths between 1970 and 2022. The age-adjusted death rate rose “by 450%,” per the release.

The age-adjusted death rate for heart failure, which occurs when “the heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the body's needs for blood and oxygen,” and of hypertensive heart disease involving high-blood pressure increased 146% and 106%, respectively.  

The study also noted that the number of people at risk for heart disease has risen, as “obesity prevalence has risen from 15% to 40%” from the 1970s to 2022 and “Type 2 diabetes” has also gone up. Hypertension has also increased from “approximately 30% in 1978 to nearly 50% in 2022.”

“All of these risk factors contribute to an ongoing burden of heart disease, especially as related to heart failure, hypertensive heart disease and arrhythmias,” said another of the study’s authors, Dr. Latha Palaniappan.