Heart Attacks Decline, But CVD Deaths Climb

The reason I posted this article is because it states that death from arrythmias have increased by an astounding over 400% increase. I have now seen this information on other articles. Any thoughts about why such a dramatic increase??


[www.medscape.com]

Perspective, committees where experts discuss the parameters and criteria, redefinitions. etc. An example of where this takes place regularly is the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental illness/disorder). Every four or five years, they meet and decide which revisions make sense, which new disorders to characterize and to include...or exclude. It's very political...lots of lobbying by groups of like-minded psychiatrists and psychologists to ensure their research papers get included in discussions, ideally to have a newly characterized disorder included, or to have another one defined differently and excluded.

So, without having taken a look, going just on your question, my guess would be that discussions have changed the factors, either included or excluded, or just weighted, and now they feel that many deaths that SHOULD properly be attributed, at least in part, to arrhythmias, are much higher than previously thought.

I'll now go read and see what gives...

Edit (added) The article is rather spare, and I don't have time right now to watch the video. I dunno, seems to me we all die of something if we live long enough. Cancer, heart attack, heart failure, atherosclerosis, organ failure...the list goes on. I can't believe that heart disease has risen that much since the time we've mostly stopped smoking and drinking ourselves to death as we were doing in the 60's and early 70's.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2025 04:28PM by gloaming.

I read another article from a different source with this same information. It states that even though the arrythmia deaths are higher, it is about 4% of the statistics for the overall population sampled for all cause CVD. According to the article, one reason for the heart attack decline is the interventional care advances. I think the rise in obesity and diabetes has an impact on the CVD research stats. In the second article I read with this same information, it was aimed at PCP's and how to counsel patients on self-care to avoid CVD. To your point, we all will pass from something.

I need to read the original research pegging arrhythmia deaths at a 400% increase. I'm very skeptical and videos don't work for me.

The other CVD causes of death don't surprise me at all. Obesity used to be unusual, now it's the norm, and with obesity comes diabetes, metabolic syndrome, hypertension... all the ingredients for CVD.

This appears to be the original source of the claim. Haven't had time to read it yet.

Take away information.

Results
From 1970 to 2022, overall age‐adjusted heart disease mortality decreased by 66% from 1970 to 2022 (from 761 to 258 per 100 000). In 1970, 91% of all heart disease deaths were ischemic, declining to 53% of all heart disease deaths in 2022. From 1970 to 2022, age‐adjusted mortality decreased by 89% for acute myocardial infarction (from 354 to 40 per 100 000) and 81% for all ischemic heart disease (from 693 to 135 per 100 00). In contrast, from 1970 to 2022 age‐adjusted mortality for other heart disease subtypes increased by 81% (from 68 to 123 per 100 000), with the greatest increases in heart failure (146% increase), hypertensive heart disease (106% increase) and arrhythmias (450% increase).
Conclusions
Heart disease mortality has decreased over the past 5 decades. There is an increasing burden of mortality from other heart conditions including heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, and arrhythmias. Further efforts must be undertaken to address the growing challenge of these other heart conditions.

The other article I read stated that the arrhythia deaths counted for about 4%. Still interested in the dramatic rise of arrhythmias over this time period.

There are a lot of confounding factors in that study that could have affected the arrhythmia numbers, which the authors discuss. For one, death certificates and ICD reporting aren't the same today as they were in the 1970s. It's common today to see cause of death listed as sudden cardiac arrest (an arrhythmia) when in the 70s it would likely have been reported as heart attack.

Anyway, I think the numbers for arrhythmia deaths have probably been skewed by confounding factors.