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6 in 10 women will develop heart disease or stroke by 2050, heart association projects In a sobering look at risk factors for heart disease and stroke, new projections estimate that 6 out of 10 women will develop at least one type of cardiovascular disease over the next 25 years. Moreover, disease will show up at younger ages. By 2050, nearly one-third of girls from ages 2 to 19 will have obesity, one of the three main drivers of cardiovascular disease, the new American Heart Association scientific statement published Wednesday in Circulation said. The work is based on the organization’s previous research estimating future cardiovascular disease prevalence. High blood pressure, the leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease, becomes more common in older age, but obesity is a relatively new concern for children. Diabetes is the third risk factor. “That should be a wake-up call for us,” C. Noel Bairey Merz, director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, told STAT. She was not involved in the paper. “It’s alarming and it’s all preventable. That’s the sad reality.” Increasing levels of obesity in children are alarming to Karen Joynt Maddox, a cardiologist and professor at Washington University School of Medicine. She is the lead author of the AHA statement. “We’re just setting... https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/25/heart-disease-risk-forecasts-women-2050-projections/