Dive Brief:
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Patients without hypertension, obesity, or diabetes had 73% to 85% lower risks of incident heart failure than patients with these risk factors, according to a study published by JACC Heart Failure.
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Patients without these risk factors lived without incident heart failure for an average of 3 to 15 years longer than those with one or more risk factors.
- Around 5.7 million patients in the U.S. have heart failure and around one-half of people with heart failure die within 5 years of diagnosis, according to the CDC.
Dive Insight:
Hypertension, diabetes, and obesity are all common conditions that create risk for other conditions, such as heart failure, and weigh heavily on healthcare spending. While results to the study were expected, they help to quantify how certain risk factors affect overall survival and chances for developing other serious conditions.
Many have called attention to the obesity epidemic, but that doesn’t appear to be affecting obesity rates. One estimate says nearly one-half of adults will be obese by 2030 and healthcare costs associated with obesity exceed $300 billion per year. Recent data from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Index indicated that hypertension and diabetes were two of the top five conditions affecting patients sampled.
Although the study didn’t necessarily come as a surprise, “the magnitude of the impact offers a useful discussion point for doctors,” Casey Ross noted for Stat News. Still, there is a great many work to be done to shrink the magnitude of preventable diseases.