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In 2019, the leading causes of death worldwide were ischemic heart disease, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). That year, ischemic heart disease and stroke accounted for a combined 27 percent of all deaths worldwide. Although the leading causes of death worldwide vary by region and country, heart disease is a consistent leading cause of death regardless of income, development, size, or location.

Heart disease

In 2019, around 8.89 million people worldwide died from ischemic heart disease. In comparison, around 1.78 million people died from lung cancer that year, while 1.5 million died from diabetes. The countries with the highest rates of death due to heart attack and other ischemic heart diseases are Lithuania, Russia, and Hungary. Although some risk factors for heart disease, such as age and genetics, are unmodifiable, the likelihood of developing heart disease can be greatly reduced through a healthy lifestyle. The biggest modifiable risk factors for heart disease include smoking, an unhealthy diet, being overweight, and a lack of exercise. In 2019, it was estimated that around two million deaths worldwide due to ischemic heart disease could be attributed to smoking.

The leading causes of death in the United States

Just as it is the leading cause of death worldwide, heart disease is also the leading cause of death in the United States. In 2020, heart disease accounted for almost 21 percent of all deaths in the United States. Cancer was the second leading cause of death in the U.S. that year, followed by COVID-19. As of 2020, the odds that a person in the United States will die from heart disease is 1 in 6. However, rates of death due to heart disease have actually declined in the U.S. over the past couple decades. From 2000 to 2019, there was a 7.3 percent decline in heart disease deaths. On the other hand, deaths from Alzheimer’s disease saw an increase of 145 percent over this period. Alzheimer’s disease is currently the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for 32.4 deaths per 100,000 population in 2020.