‘16% adults in Karnataka at risk of heart diseases’

At least 16% of adults aged between 30 and 74 years in Karnataka may experience heart attacks, strokes or other serious cardiovascular diseases, says a new study that found high heart disease risk in southern states.

Karnataka, however, fares better than four of its neighbours – Kerala, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu where nearly one-fifth of the population can develop serious cardiovascular complications. Among the southern states, the risk is the lowest in Telangana.

The study estimates how the average 10-year risk of developing cardiovascular disease varies widely among India’s states, ranging from 13.2% in Jharkhand to 19.5% in Kerala with substantial variation across socio-economic groups.

The risk tends to be on the higher side, particularly among males, in South India including Goa, three northern states Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Uttarakhand, most of the states in North-East barring Assam and West Bengal.

The study also shows nearly 20% urban adults aged more than 30 years in Kerala and West Bengal are likely to develop fatal or non-fatal heart attacks and stroke.

For urban Karnataka, the figure is almost 18% while for just under 16% of people in rural areas may experience such diseases in 10 years time.

“No doubt, the risk of cardiovascular diseases is more in urban areas. But the gap with the rural areas are very narrow at least among the well to do families,” Ashish Awasthi, a medical scientist at the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar and one of the members of the team that carried out the study, told DH.

In the new heart disease mapping exercise, a team comprising researchers from 13 institutes and led by the Harvard University used two large household surveys conducted between 2012 and 2014. The surveys sampled 797,540 adults aged 30 to 74 years across India and the CVD risk was examined by state, rural or urban residence, age, sex, wealth, and education.

The research corroborates the common perception of males having a higher risk of heart diseases and stroke. High CVD risk is 31.7% among males as against 14.6% among females. “We found that CVD risk was higher in urban areas and among males. Also while mean BMI was substantially higher among wealthy than poor individuals, high blood glucose and high systolic BP were common among poor individuals in middle and old age,” the researchers said.