A study, reported at the American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans said that the number of people over 65 years who were hospitalized for heart failure had more than doubled over the last 25 years. The report is the first to document the increase in the disease across the country and estimates that this will cost the United States $34.8 billion this year for direct and indirect treatment costs and the incidence would keep increasing unless prevention measures are adopted quickly.

Dr. Longjian Liu of Drexel University in Philadelphia said, "Over the next decades, the number of U.S. adults age 65 and older will double to a projected 70 million, and more than one in five will be 65 or older by the year 2030. Because heart failure disproportionately affects the elderly, there is no doubt that the burden of heart failure will increase unless innovative strategies are implemented," said Liu.

In the study Liu studied national discharge data on 2.2 million patients all aged 65 or older between the years 1980 and 2006. He then compared the figures with the census population data and found 807,082 people aged 65 and older were hospitalized with heart failure in 2006, a 131 % increase from 348,866 in 1980.

According to the American Heart Association an estimated 5.3 million Americans have heart failure, a chronic disease in which the heart gradually loses its ability to pump blood efficiently, leaving organs starved for oxygen. Another 660,000 patients are diagnosed yearly with the disease. Liu's study found that hospitalization rates for stroke and coronary artery disease have fallen since the mid-1980s; hospitalization rates for heart failure have continued to climb.

High blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, diabetes, obesity and lifestyle factors such as smoking, lack of exercise and a diet rich in fatty foods all contribute as risk factors.

"The prevention and treatment of heart failure has become an urgent public health need with national implications," Liu said. "The key is to prevent risk factors for the disease."

The study noted that heart failure risk among women was growing faster than in men although more men will land up in the hospital each year. Age also contributed to an increase in risk with patients who 75 to 85 years were being twice as likely to get hospitalized as younger people.

Vincent Bufalino, clinical associate professor of medicine at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago said, ``Frankly, people are living longer. Whether you like it or not, they are developing progressive disease.''

Liu said the best approach to avoid hospitalization is to prevent heart failure from occurring in the first place. ``Our problem is this is 14 percent of the Medicare population and 42 percent of the resources,'' he said. ``That's our dilemma. With the present set of resources, this elderly population that we're taking care of that we didn't take care of before, plus the baby boomers, is a double demographic. We will not have the resources to care for them.''