KARACHI: Health experts and medical scientists on Thursday warned about the fast deteriorating lifestyle in the country which recently led to a rise in the number of cardiovascular diseases mainly among the people aged between 25 and 40 years who were now seen more frequently suffering from heart attacks or myocardial infarction.
They called it “a very conservative estimate” that the number of young patients visiting the hospitals with cardiac-related issues had increased manifold within a few years with already high prevalence of risks which actually triggered the situation like heart attack. They said prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as obesity, physical inactivity, poor diet, smoking among others was increasing among the youth, which was evident from the fact that prevalence of diabetes increased by 150 per cent in Pakistan during the past two years while half of the Pakistani adult population was hypertensive.
Urging people to go for some kind of physical activity on a daily basis, cardiologists at a public awareness session at the start of the 50th Cardiocon of the Pakistan Cardiac Society at a local hotel said Pakistan was facing “an epidemic of cardiovascular diseases” among many other diseases related to lifestyle and feared that the number of deaths due to cardiac diseases could increase manifolds in the coming years.
Addressing the session, eminent interventional cardiologist Prof Javed Akbar Sial said the incidence of cardiovascular disease was on the rise among young Pakistani males and now a large number of people below the age of 40 years were being brought to emergency sections of cardiac health facilities with heart attacks, which was an extremely alarming situation.
“I remember that the youngest patient with heart attack who brought to NICVD [National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases] was a 17-year-old boy who had the heart attack due to heavy smoking and obesity,” he said.
“A large number of people aged between 25 and 40 years are now having heart attacks in Karachi and rest of the country due to sedentary lifestyle and other risk factors. It’s a wake-up call for us all as a society.”
He said that in addition to genetic factors, smoking, obesity, physical inactivity and poor diet, including fast food and heavily oily food consumed in Pakistan were major risk factors for the heart attacks and added that this lifestyle was resulting in people becoming hypertensive and diabetic, which were ultimately resulting in heart attacks, strokes and other serious issues.
Another renowned cardiologist Prof Fawad Farooq said that due to physical inactivity and unhealthy diet, obesity was alarmingly on the rise among Pakistani people, especially youngsters and even children. Young boys and teenagers were being seen with large bellies and abdominal obesity, which should be serious cause of concern for the entire nation, he added.
“Heavy intake of unhealthy food without exercise is the main crime we are doing as a nation and becoming a nation of obese people. Obesity is the mother of most of the diseases, giving rise to hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases,” he said and advised people to start walking on a daily basis.
He said that for exercise, there was no need to have track suit, joggers and a jogging track and said people could even do exercise in their rooms.
Head of preventive cardiology at NICVD Prof Khawar Kazmi was of the opinion that Pakistan could not afford to treat the growing number of people with cardiovascular diseases and warned that if a movement to change lifestyle was not launched on a national level, Pakistan could face a flood of deaths and disabilities in the years to come.
“Increase in diabetes by 150 per cent in last two years indicates at the direction in which we are heading as a nation. If we don’t take immediate steps to prevent our people from lifestyle diseases like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and hypertension, we would be facing a flood of deaths due to their complications in the coming years or even months,” he said.
Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2021
