Research from the Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research shows 511,000 Australians currently live with heart failure and each year 67,000 new cases are diagnosed, costing the healthcare system more than $5 billion a year.
By 2025, modelling shows more than 650,000 Australians will suffer heart failure, an increase of almost 30 per cent, the study said.
Research fellow Professor Simon Stewart, director of the Mary MacKillop Institute of Health Research and director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence to Reduce Inequality in Heart Disease, led the research and says this is a conservative estimate.
"The scary part for us is that this is just modelling based on the ageing of the Australian population and the growth of the Australian population," Prof Stewart said.
The research, which was funded by pharmaceutical company Novartis, does not take into account any other heart failure risk factors such as obesity and diabetes.
Heart failure is when the muscles of the heart become too weak to pump blood through the body or it can't relax properly to take in enough blood to supply around the body.
To help reduce the problem, the government has announced it will subsidise a first-of-its-kind drug called Entresto to help deal with the problem.
Patients currently using Entresto pay around $260 a month for the treatment.
As of June 1 though, the medication will become part of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, meaning pensioners will pay just $6 a month and non-pensioners around $30.
The government subsidy has been given the thumbs up by health experts who are warning of a growing heart failure epidemic.
Andrew Sindone, a heart-failure specialist at Sydney's Westmead Hospital, said the drug has significant benefits for patients.
"This medication showed a 16 per cent reduction in chance of dying, a 21 per cent reduction of people ending up in hospital, and people felt better. So that really fulfills all of our goals,” Mr Sindone said.
But Prof Stewart warns the drug on its own is not enough to tackle the problem.
"We have to work on prevention, early detection and management is better than relying on these types of drugs to prolong someone's life," he said.
Gary Jennings, from the National Heart Foundation, said some members of multicultural communities developed risk factors as they adapted to a Western lifestyle.
He said it was important people took steps to cut the risk by reducing their cholesterol and their blood pressure and being physically active.
With AAP
