Heart disease is still the top killer globally, but progress has been made. At the American Heart Association (AHA) EPI - Lifestyle Scientific Sessions 2025, Dr Salim Virani, Vice Provost of Research at Aga Khan University, delivered a keynote lecture addressing the global challenges and opportunities in cardiovascular disease prevention and management. Here's an overview of his presentation:
The Good: We're seeing fewer deaths from heart attacks and strokes when we consider the fact that the population of the world is getting older. Data shows that better healthcare and awareness are working for most risk factors. For example, even with problems controlling high blood pressure, death rates are dropping when adjusted for population aging.
The Bad: Some risks are still causing a high morbidity and mortality – high blood sugar and obesity are getting worse. Air pollution is also a growing problem for heart health. Certain areas, like parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and South Asia, are still struggling with high heart disease rates. This is likely due to a combination of weak healthcare systems, poverty, and in some cases, genetic predisposition.
Early Help is Key: Dr Virani says we need to start checking for heart risks earlier in life. This means looking at young children before they develop risk factors since a better lifestyle or early treatment even a decade earlier provides large dividends. Finding problems early can prevent bigger issues later. The field of cardiovascular disease prevention is now moving towards looking at risk factors in the mother for e.g. high blood pressure during pregnancy and diabetes during pregnancy and its future impact on the cardiovascular risk in the unborn child. Controlling these risk factors in the mother can have beneficial cardiovascular effects in the child.
Getting Medicine to Everyone: Even when we have good heart medicines, not everyone can get them, especially in poorer countries. Many people who need basic medicines aren't getting them. We need to make these medicines cheaper and easier to get.
More Than Just Medicine: Heart health is linked to things like poverty and education. We need to tackle these problems. Therefore, a multi-sectoral approach that targets all social determinants of health, for example poverty, education and access, will be more successful than targeting health as an isolated domain.
What's Next? Fighting heart disease takes global teamwork. We need more research, better policies, and better healthcare. We also need to focus on preventing problems before they start.
To learn more, watch Dr. Virani's interview with AHA here:
