A study undertaken over the course of eight years in five villages near Chennai has shown that cardiovascular diseases remain quite high even among a rural population, a report in The Hindu says.
The study, carried out by Dr. Prabhdeep Kaur of Chennai’s National Institute of Epidemiology and published in the journal BMJ Open has challenged the commonly held notion that those living comparatively ‘stress-free’ lives in non-urban areas are immune to heart attacks and strokes.
“The study involved 5,641 adults aged 25-64 years…There were 96 deaths — 79 from heart attacks and 17 from stroke. There were 59 adults who suffered but did not die from heart attack and stroke,” said the Hindu report.
The five villages were all located in Tiruvallur district near Chennai. Death from cardio-vascular diseases developed due to a variety of causes ranging from hypertension to tobacco use, was quite common. In fact, two-thirds of the people who developed such diseases died of them, the study found.
Also read: Heart Disease, Stroke Among Top Killers in India
“Early diagnosis, treatment and regular follow-up to ensure control of hypertension and blood sugar will help people through their lifetime,” Kaur was quoted by the paper as having said.
Last year, a series of studies published in The Lancet had revealed that India has witnessed an alarming rise in the occurrence of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancers in the past 25 years,
“The prevalence of heart disease and stroke has increased by over 50% from 1990 to 2016 in India, with an increase observed in every state,” Dinesh C. Sharma had written in his report for The Wire.
The contribution of these diseases to total deaths and disease burden in the country has almost doubled in the last 25 years. Heart disease is now the leading individual cause of disease burden in India, and stroke is the fifth leading cause, the 2018 series of studies had found.