People in developing countries are now at greater risk of contracting cardiovascular disease than people in wealthy nations, the UN’s World Health Organisation warned on Friday.
The full data on the shift is due to be released at the end of this month in the WHO’s annual World Health Report, which this year focuses on healthy lifestyles, the UN’s health agency said in a statement.
We are seeing that conditions like high blood pressure and high cholesterol are much more prominent in developing countries than previously thought and contribute significantly to their overall disease burden,” said Anthony Rodgers of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, a consultant for the WHO’s report. ”The whole world once thought of cardiovascular disease as a western problem, but this is clearly not the case,” he added.
The WHO reiterated that the need to control cardiovascular diseases such as heart trouble, strokes and excessive cholesterol in developing countries was greater. ”It places a double burden on national health systems which must simultaneously deal with the infectious diseases found primarily in these countries as well as newer cardiovascular diseases,” Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO director-general said.
The WHO said it will also expose in the report how some the figure of 12-million deaths a year from heart trouble and strokes could easily be halved through treatment with basic drugs and behavioural changes.
High cholestorol, inactive lifestyles, smoking, and low fruit and vegetable intake account for most of the cardiovascular problems, it said.
Between 10 and 30% of adults in almost all countries suffer from high blood pressure, the report found. – Sapa-AFP