Report: Heart Disease Is A Global Problem

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Report:

Heart Disease Is A Global Problem

NEW YORK (AP) -- Heart disease is a huge but largely overlooked

problem for global health, striking working-age people in developing

countries and hampering their economies, a new report concludes.

Low- and middle-income countries suffer

about 80 percent of the world's 17 million deaths every year from heart

disease, including stroke, researchers found.

" This is a common problem in developing

countries, " said study lead author Leeder,

a visiting research fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

What's more, he said, while the United

States and other developed countries have largely pushed the death rate from

such diseases past age 70 through prevention and medical care, the problem is

far more common in working-age people elsewhere.

In the age group of 30 to 59, for example,

the rate of men dying from heart disease in Russia is about five times that of the United States; in India, it's nearly double; and in South Africa and Brazil, markedly higher, the report says.

India alone is losing a million people a year from its

potential active work force, Leeder said.

" These are people who would otherwise

be adding to the economy. They're people who would be looking after their

families, " Leeder said Friday, noting that

widowhood is " a fast track to poverty " in developing countries.

The report is sponsored by Columbia's Earth Institute and its school of public health, the

University of Sydney in Australia and the Initiative for Cardiovascular Health Research

in The Developing Countries. It is scheduled to be released on Monday but was

available Friday on the university institute's Web site.

In a foreword, Yach,

a representative of the World Health Organization's director-general, said

the report " will start to dispel many myths that hamper progress in CVD

(heart disease) and other chronic diseases. "

To combat the problem, Leeder

said, developing countries must recognize heart disease as an economic as

well as a health issue. They should take steps like taxing cigarettes and

banning tobacco ads.

Residents should be educated about the risk

of heart disease and about getting exercise and trimming their diets, he

said. And governments should do all they can to make sure inexpensive drugs

to treat high blood pressure and high cholesterol are provided to their

citizens, Leeder said.

The report notes that the problem of heart

disease in low- and middle-income countries hasn't gotten more attention in

part because it has " few of the features that attract international

sympathy or support. " It rarely kills children, the researchers wrote,

while adults with the disease " do not provide heart-rending photo

opportunities. "

It is " commonly seen as an affliction

of affluence occurring in late middle and old age, a regrettable but

inevitable feature of growing old.... "

That view persists despite the fact that

millions of people, especially the poor, die from cardiovascular disease in

their 40s and 50s, the report says, " ... and it is the poor, not the

rich, who are generally most at risk. "

The research takes a close look at

populations in Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa, and calculates the number of productive years lost to

heart disease as an indicator of economic cost. In total, the loss is about

21 million productive years annually, and it will climb to about 34 million

by 2030 unless communities and their governments take action, the report

said.

Leeder said those estimates are conservative.

Copyright 2004 The

Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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