Heart Attacks Stats & Facts

Certain behaviors also put you at risk for heart disease. These include:

Smoking: Smoking is a major cause of cardiovascular disease and causes approximately 1 in 4 heart disease deaths.
Eating a poor diet: A diet that’s high in fat, salt, sugar, and cholesterol can contribute to the development of heart disease.
Not exercising: Even though exercise reduces the risk for heart disease and early death, only about half of Americans get the recommended amount of aerobic activity.
Drinking alcohol excessively: Heavy alcohol use can increase the risk for heart attack, heart failure, and death. Excess drinking can damage the heart before symptoms even appear.
Depression: Adults with a depressive disorder or symptoms of depression have a 64 percent greater risk of developing coronary artery disease.
Obesity: Being overweight or obese is linked to several factors that increase the risk for cardiovascular disease, including diabetes and high blood pressure.
Heart disease is responsible for most deaths worldwide for both men and women of all races.

As of 2018, 30.3 million U.S. adults were diagnosed with heart disease. Every year, about 647,000 Americans die from heart disease, making it the leading cause of death in the United States. Heart disease causes 1 out of every 4 deaths.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approximately every 40 seconds an American will have a heart attack. Every year, 805,000 Americans have a heart attack, 605,000 of them for the first time.
About 12 percent of people who have a heart attack will die from it.
Coronary artery disease, a blockage of the arteries that supply blood to the heart, is the most common type of heart disease. Coronary heart disease affects about 18.2 million Americans age 20 and older, and it killed nearly 366,000 in 2017.
Heart disease is the number one cause of death for most racial and ethnic groups. In 2015, it was responsible for 23.7 percent of deaths in white people and 23.5 percent in Black people.