Most people have heard statistics from their own country. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death – or second or third. But what about other countries? Are their statistics similar to those in your country? Is cardiovascular disease as common in New Zealand and Latin America? Is it the main cause of death in Japan and the new moon in the Middle East?

What is the global prevalence of cardiovascular disease?

Global cardiovascular disease prevalence

The prevalence of cardiovascular disease worldwide is a big topic because many different diseases belong to this large umbrella.

However, the World Health Organization [WHO] has provided some global health statistics since 1990 [Murray CJL & Lopez AD, 1996]. Provide statistics for established market economies, such as Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, New Zealand and the United States. In addition, the World Health Organization provides statistics on the world's former socialist regions, including India, China, other Asian and island regions, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East Crescent region.

From these statistics, we can see that the global epidemic of cardiovascular disease is divided into three categories: coronary heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease involving angina usually presents as chest pain. Pain is caused by obstruction of the artery, which blocks the vital oxygen of the heart.

The global cardiovascular epidemic of coronary heart disease appears to follow a rapidly changing stress lifestyle. Coronary heart disease [CHD] is most prevalent in established market economies. In these combined countries, 8.2 million people had the disease during the study. There are 6.6 million cases in India. In the former socialist countries, this figure is 5.8 million. The region with the lowest prevalence of coronary heart disease is sub-Saharan Africa. This may be due, at least in part, to the slow pace of life in the area.

stroke

The globally prevalent cardiovascular disease is characterized by a stroke and seems to be accompanied by a rapidly changing stressful lifestyle.

The study found that there were 9.5 million strokes in established market economies and only 1.3 million strokes in sub-Saharan Africa. Interestingly, China ranks second in this category with 7.4 million strokes. However, China ranks fourth in terms of coronary heart disease, with 4.5 million people.

diabetes

Established market economies are once again leading the global prevalence of cardiovascular disease diagnosed through diabetes. During the study period, 37.9 million people in these countries had diabetes. The runner-up is India, less than half of the cases: 18.1 million. There are only 3.9 million cases in sub-Saharan Africa.

In summary

After observing the global epidemic of cardiovascular disease, people have to ask why. Why are wealth-rich areas with the world's largest medical expertise and a higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease? Why are strokes and diabetes more common in the metropolises of mature market economies than in African villages?

The layman can only conclude that for all of our knowledge about cardiovascular disease, we seriously lack this knowledge for prevention.

caveat: from

 The author is not a medical professional and only provides the information in this article for educational purposes only.

Global cardiovascular disease was originally published on Spring