Younger hearts at risk

ADVANCES in medicine over the last decade have reduced deaths from heart disease. However, heart disease continues to be the top or second highest cause of death in most countries, and in the United States (US), it is the number one cause of death. In the US, death rates from heart disease have fallen by about 50 per cent in the period from 1980 to 2002. While it is generally assumed that the benefit has extended across the population, a study published in August 2015 in the prestigious Circulation journal showed findings that were surprising enough for the journal to publish an editorial entitled Heart Disease Prevention in Young Women: Sounding an Alarm.

The beneficial decline in death from heart disease has not been seen to the same extent for all demographic groups. In the US, annual rate of decline of death from heart disease among the younger adults (35 to 54 years) had slowed down rapidly, with an annual decrease of 5.4 per cent from 1980 to 1989, while the trend for females has reversed, with an annual increase of 1.5 per cent from 2000 to 2002.

A similar trend was seen in males where the annual decrease slowed from 6.2 per cent to 0.5 per cent during the same period. The US is not the only country with this trend of stagnation or increase in death from heart disease in the young.