While medical advances have helped people live longer with cardiovascular diseases, many of the risk factors that lead to these diseases continue to grow. Fueled by ongoing increases in high blood pressure, obesity and other major risk factors, heart disease continues to kill more people in the U.S. than any other cause, according to the American Heart Association’s 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics Update. In fact, cardiovascular diseases including heart disease and stroke claim more lives than all forms of cancer and accidental deaths – the No. The annual report published in “Circulation,” the peer-reviewed, flagship journal of the American Heart Association, shows the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors are projected to worsen over the coming decades. The prevalence of these risk factors – obesity in particular – is growing among young people globally.