Heart disease remains the top killer of Americans as risk factors continue to grow.

The latest statistics were revealed in the American Heart Association’s annual report, 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics.

The report, which was published on Jan. 27 in the AHA’s journal Circulation, revealed that cardiovascular disease kills more people than all types of cancer and accidental deaths combined.

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In 2022 — the most recent year for which mortality data is available — a total of 941,652 people died of heart disease-related conditions, according to the report. This was a little more than 10,000 more deaths than the prior year.

The age-adjusted death rate decreased slightly from last year, however.

“Overall, we are seeing cardiovascular-related deaths leveling out compared to 2022,” said Dr. Bradley Serwer, a Maryland-based cardiologist and chief medical officer at VitalSolution, an Ingenovis Health company that offers cardiovascular and anesthesiology services to hospitals.

“We are making some improvements in regard to improved prevalence of hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol) and lower incidence of smoking, but have lost ground in regard to diabetes, obesity and hypertension,” Serwer, who was not involved in the report, told Fox News Digital.

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Someone dies of heart disease every 34 seconds in the U.S., and a total of 2,500 die per day, according to Keith Churchwell, M.D., the volunteer president of the American Heart Association.

“It’s alarming to note that excess weight now costs us even more lives than smoking.”

“Those are alarming statistics to me – and they should be alarming for all of us,” Churchwell said in a press release.

“Too many people are dying from heart disease and from stroke, which remains the fifth leading cause of death.”

Risk factors

The report also detailed the prevalence of specific risk factors for heart disease.

More than 72% of U.S. adults have “unhealthy weight,” which is defined as a body mass index of at least 25, the report stated.

Nearly 42% of those adults meet the criteria for obesity (a body mass index of 30 or more).

The report also revealed that more than half of U.S. adults (57%) have type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.

“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,” American Heart Association volunteer Dhruv S. Kazi, M.D., wrote in an editorial that accompanied the report.

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“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.”

Experts predict a 300% increase cardiovascular-related healthcare costs, added Kazi, who is also 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.

The report also called out different rates of risk factors among different races and ethnic groups.

Black women were found to have the highest rate of obesity (57.9%) and Asian women had the lowest rate (14.5%).

Black women also had the highest rate of blood pressure (58.4%) and Hispanic women, at 35.3%, had the lowest rate.

“Just because we are seeing improvements in smoking and high cholesterol doesn’t mean we can back off.”

“We are also seeing a rise in obesity in our youth, with as many as 40% having unhealthy weight,” Serwer warned. 

“This trend continues into adulthood, when we see nearly 60% of adults having unhealthy weight.”

Excess weight is a contributing factor in as many as 1,300 additional deaths per day in the U.S., or nearly 500,000 per year, according to the report.

“It lowers life expectancy by as much as 2.4 years compared to a healthy weight,” said American Heart Association volunteer Latha P. Palaniappan, M.D., a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. 

“It’s alarming to note that excess weight now costs us even more lives than smoking – as smoking rates have actually fallen in recent years. Being overweight is the new smoking when it comes to health threats.”

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One positive finding in the report is that rates of high cholesterol have dropped, which is attributed to improved dietary and lifestyle factors, availability of medications and “better clinical control.”

“Recent clinical research has identified a number of new medication therapies to address the growing burden of obesity, as well, and we look forward to learning more about those advances as the body of science builds,” Churchwell noted.

What needs to change?

The researchers called for interventions to help reduce heart disease risk factors.

“Any medical or clinical therapies that can treat the risk factors that contribute to CVD are essential,” Churchwell wrote. “…We need to stop these risk factors in their tracks, keep people healthy throughout their lifespan.”

Serwer agreed that the best way to combat this top killer is to aggressively attack the risk factors. 

“Just because we are seeing improvements in smoking and high cholesterol doesn’t mean we can back off,” he said.

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“We need to continue to aggressively attack tobacco use and treat hyperlipidemia while increasing efforts to treat obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.”