Earlier this year, the American Heart Association (AHA) released its annual Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics Update. Perhaps the scariest takeaway was that someone in America dies from heart disease every 34 seconds. That's 2,500 people every day, and believe it or not, it's more than cancer and accidental deaths combined.

Heart disease is an umbrella term for a range of cardiovascular conditions that include coronary artery disease, arrhythmias, congenital heart defects, cardiomyopathy, heart valve disease, heart failure, and pericardium, according to Cleveland Clinic. "When people think about heart disease, they often think of the most common type — coronary artery disease (CAD) and the heart attacks it can cause," their experts write.

But a new report published in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) found that heart attack deaths have dropped sharply over the past 50 years, while deaths from chronic conditions such as heart failure, arrhythmia, and hypertensive heart disease have skyrocketed. What's behind these shocking figures?

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Heart attack deaths in the U.S. have fallen 90% since 1970.

According to the report, heart attacks, which were once the leading cause of death in the U.S., fell sharply between 1970 and 2022 in adults over age 25. During the most recent reporting year, heart attacks accounted for 24 percent of all U.S. deaths, down from 41 percent 50 years ago—a nearly 90 percent decrease, as a press release notes.

The positive change can be attributed to the introduction of heart stents, coronary artery bypass surgery, cholesterol medications, bystander CPR training, and lower smoking rates.

These advances have also helped improve survival rates for heart attacks (also known as ischemic heart disease). In 1970, a person over the age of 65 who was hospitalized for a heart attack only had a 60 percent chance of surviving; today, the survival rate is 90 percent.

"Ischemic heart disease is caused by plaque building up in the arteries," Sara King, MD, a medical resident and lead author of the new study, said in a statement. "It’s a common pathophysiology that we have learned can be prevented and treated."

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But deaths from chronic heart issues are rising at a shocking pace.

Unfortunately, not all cardiac issues have seen the same downward trend. As mentioned, U.S. deaths from the following chronic heart conditions have risen dramatically over the past five decades:

Arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat, up 106 percent

Heart failure, a condition when the heart can't adequately pump blood, up 146 percent

Hypertensive heart disease, a result of long-term high blood pressure, up 450 percent

"People now are surviving these acute events, so they have the opportunity to develop these other heart conditions," said King, referencing the positive heart attack survival rates.

The increase in chronic conditions may also be due to a rise in risk factors among U.S. adults, including:

Obesity, which affects 40 percent of Americans

Hypertension, which affects roughly 48 percent of Americans

Diabetes, which affects 50 percent of Americans

Physical inactivity

A longer life expectancy—up to 77.5 years in 2022 from 70.9 years in 1970—also may make chronic conditions more prevalent.

"Often it’s the passage of time that can lead to conditions such as atrial fibrillation or heart failure," King said. "Finding ways to age healthily is going to be the next frontier of heart care."

However, she noted that the study did not account for sex, race, and socioeconomic status, all of which can affect one's heart disease risk and access to appropriate care.

"A lot of people, unfortunately, who end up in this mortality dataset are people who don’t engage with care or who don’t have access to care," she said, adding that her next step in the research is to delve into these subgroups.