HF deaths increased by 38% from 2011 to 2017
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Despite a slow decline in the rate of heart disease mortality in the general population, substantial increases in the growth rate of patients older than 65 years with the highest risk for heart disease were linked to an increase in the number of heart disease deaths, according to a study published in JAMA Cardiology.
“The increasing trend in heart disease deaths and most notably the rather large increase in heart failure deaths started around 2011 roughly within a year or two of that,” Stephen Sidney, MD, MPH, director of research clinics at Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland, told Cardiology Today. “For heart disease deaths, [this is] particularly notable because the number of deaths in 2011 represented a 56-year low in heart disease deaths, which had been increasing since about 1910 when heart disease became the leading cause of death. It’s a really historical change in the trend.”
CDC data
Researchers analyzed information from the CDC Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research data set to obtain information on the mortality rates, number of deaths and U.S. population data from 2000 to 2017. A population projection for 2030 was also acquired from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The population of adults aged 65 years and older increased by 22.9% from 2011 to 2017 (41.4 million to 50.9 million) at an annualized increase of 3.5%. During this time, the number of adults younger than 65 years increased by 1.7%.
The age-adjusted mortality rate decreased by 14.9% for CHD and 5% for heart disease. In contrast, the age-adjusted mortality rate increased by 8.4% for other heart diseases and 20.7% for HF.
The number of deaths increased by 8.5% for heart disease, 23.4% for other heart diseases and 38% for HF. A decrease by 2.5% was observed for the number of deaths associated with CHD.
“There’s another scary trend, which is that the number of heart failure deaths increased substantially over the 2011 to 2017 time period ... stressing the need for prevention,” Sidney said in an interview.
Deaths related to heart disease occurred in 80% of adults who were aged 65 years and older.
Potential implications
“There is going to be a greater burden on the health care system for the increased number of heart disease patients that are seen and heart failure in particular,” Sidney told Cardiology Today. “There’s a couple of different major categories of implications for clinical practice, the first is that more prevention efforts are important. We know that the major causes of heart failure in particular — and they apply to heart disease — are things like hypertension, diabetes and obesity. ... On the other side of clinical practice, we need to make sure that treatment is optimized for people who do have heart disease and people who have heart failure in particular. We need better mediations for heart failure.”
Jamal S. Rana, MD, PhD, chief of cardiology at Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center in California and adjunct research investigator at the division of research at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, told Healio, “We are now in the midst of a ‘silver tsunami’ of heart disease and heart failure. This will require both innovation in clinical care for our patients and urgent policy initiatives at the health care systems level to be better prepared for its impact.” – by Darlene Dobkowski
For more information:
Jamal S. Rana, MD, PhD , can be reached at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, 3600 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94611; email: jamal.s.rana@kp.org
Stephen Sidney, MD, MPH, can be reached at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Division of Research, 2000 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94612; email: steve.sidney@kp.org.
Disclosures: Sidney reports he received grants from the NHLBI. Rana reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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