Heart disease kills more people than any other cause as many of the risks factors that contribute to it remain on the rise, according the data reported in the 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics: A Report of U.S. and Global Data From the American Heart Association.
“Did you know that in the U.S., someone dies of cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds? Nearly 2,500 people in the U.S. die from cardiovascular disease every day. Those are alarming statistics to me – and they should be alarming for all of us, because it’s likely many among those whom we lose will be our friends and loved ones,” said Keith Churchwell, M.D., FAHA, the volunteer president of the American Heart Association. “Too many people are dying from heart disease and from stroke which remains the 5th leading cause of death. Together, they kill more people than all cancers and accidental deaths – the #2 and #3 causes of death – combined.”
According to the Association’s 2025 statistical report, in 2022 (the most recent year for which final data is available), the overall number of cardiovascular disease (CVD) related deaths in the U.S. was 941,652, an increase of more than 10,000 from the 931,578 CVD deaths in 2021.
According to the Association’s 2025 Statistics Update:
• Nearly 47% of U.S. adults have high blood pressure.
• More than 72% of U.S. adults have unhealthy weight (currently defined as body mass index ≥25, with nearly 42% having obesity (currently defined as body mass index ≥30).
• More than half of U.S. adults (57%) have type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.
In the editorial accompanying the 2025 Statistics Update, American Heart Association volunteer Dhruv S. Kazi, M.D., M.Sc., M.S., FAHA, who is head of health economics and associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center noted the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors is projected to worsen over the coming decades.
“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. 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. And over the same time period, we expect to see a 300% increase health care costs related to cardiovascular disease,” said Kazi.
“And it is important to acknowledge that, although cardiovascular disease affects us all, it doesn’t affect us all equally. For instance, there is wide variation in the prevalence of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure by sex and race/ethnicity, “ he added.
Prevalence rates for major risk factors vary widely across specific sex and race/ethnicity populations. Below are comparisons of the highest rates to the lowest rates of key risk factors among all of the population groups. Rates for each individual population group can be found in the report:
• For overall prevalence of obesity, Black women had the highest rate of obesity at 57.9%, compared to the lowest rate of 14.5% which was among Asian women.
• For overall prevalence of diabetes, Hispanic men had the highest rate of diabetes at 14.5% compared to the lowest rate of 7.7% which was among white women.
• For the overall prevalence of high blood pressure, Black women had the highest rate of high blood pressure at 58.4% compared to the lowest rate of 35.3% which was among Hispanic women.
The prevalence of these risk factors – obesity in particular – is also growing among young people and globally:
• As many as 40% of U.S. children have an unhealthy weight (currently defined as body mass index ≥85th percentile), with 20% having obesity (currently defined as ≥95thpercentile).
• Nearly 60% of adults globally have an unhealthy weight.
Source: American Heart Association