Deaths linked to heart valve disease are rising among older Americans after nearly two decades of progress, with the primary concern being that longer lifespans and increasingly complex health problems could be contributing to the reversal. Jawad Haider, the co-director of the structural heart program at Hartford HealthCare Heart & Vascular Institute at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, told Newsweek. Researchers project that the rate will stay elevated until 2040 rather than resume its earlier decline.
The findings will be presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2026, held from November 6 to 9 in Chicago, Illinois. Heart valve disease is a broad term for conditions in which one or more of the heart’s four valves, the aortic, mitral, pulmonary or tricuspid valve, do not work properly. More than 80 million people worldwide live with heart valve disease, according to the American Heart Association’s 2026 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics.
In the U.S., the condition contributes to more than 57,000 deaths annually. Researchers analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research, covering stats from 1999 to 2023. The study included 1,204,490 heart valve disease-related deaths among Americans aged 65 and older.
Of those deaths, 42.9 percent were among men and 57.1 percent among women. The death rate fell from 123.2 per 100,000 people in 1999 to its lowest levels immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, before climbing to 109.2 per 100,000 in 2023. Statistical forecasts indicated it could remain at roughly that level through 2040.
Researchers had pooled the data, evaluated death rate trends and age-related patterns before employing statistical software to make those estimations for the future. The findings showed that men had a higher death rate than women, at 124.7 compared with 103.1 per 100,000. Non-Hispanic white adults had the highest rate among the racial and ethnic groups studied, at 122.4 per 100,000.
Death rates were also higher in non-metropolitan areas than metropolitan areas. Age was a major factor too. In 1999, adults aged 85 and older had more than 15 times the death rate of adults aged 65 to 69.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
