Cardiovascular diseases remain the primary cause of death in developed countries, including Poland, despite the progress in their treatment and a noticeable decrease in their prevalence. For this reason, the search for biomarkers for early disease risk assessment in primary as well as secondary prevention is the main task. Growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) is becoming a leader among the new protein markers with a high predictive potential for cardiovascular diseases and their complications. An elevated GDF-15 blood level is associated with an increased risk of many cardiovascular diseases, their subclinical presence and their complications, including death. The predictive strength of GDF-15 is independent of and additive to other risk factors. GDF-15 can be used as part of a multimarker strategy to improve risk stratification, although it can also be used alone for death risk assessment. GDF-15 is not heart-specific: in some cardiovascular diseases its expression can be increased in other tissues as well. Elevated GDF-15 blood levels are found in cancer. They are also observed in renal impairment. Due to the strong relationship between GDF-15 and general mortality it is sometimes called “the marker of death.” Its increase often precedes serious clinical events by many months or even years. This provides opportunities for more intensive prevention, both primary and secondary.