Ahmad and her fellow researchers want to know whether the flat rate in heart disease is causing the higher mortality rate by no longer offsetting other causes of death that are on the rise. It is the first time since 1993 that the heart disease death rate has not declined, she said.
Although it is too soon to sound the alarm on the lack of progress in deaths from heart disease, the numbers may indicate that the significant gains made in reducing heart disease over the past 50 years have finally stagnated, said Joseph A. Hill, M.D., Ph.D., chief of cardiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Better drugs and technology — such as cholesterol-lowering statins and artery-opening stents — have allowed people at risk to live longer, Hill said. But many then live with heart failure, creating new challenges for doctors in the face of increasing rates in obesity and diabetes, he said.
“The picture of heart disease is changing,” Hill said.
Among the other causes of death included in the report, death rates from cancer and HIV fell, while rising death rates were seen for Alzheimer’s disease, drug overdoses and suicides.
For conditions that can lead to cardiovascular disease, the diabetes death rates were similar between 2014 and 2015, but high blood pressure-related deaths rose slightly.
Researchers used nationwide death certificate data to calculate the statistics.
