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Statistics have indicated to date that cardiovascular diseases are, together with cerebrovascular diseases (stroke), one of the leading causes of death in our environment. But it seems that this trend is changing and this is evidenced by the data of the PURE study, which has just been presented at the Congress of the European Society of Cardiology, in Paris, and which indicate that cancer deaths double those caused by cancer. cardiovascular diseases in high income countries.

The principal investigator, Salim Yusuf, a professor at the Canadian McMaster University , explained that the fact that cancer mortality is twice as frequent as cardiovascular causes cancer mortality to become the leading cause of death throughout the world. However, in countries with medium or low income, cardiovascular diseases continue to be the main cause of mortality, and this may be due not to a greater presence of risk factors, but to the fact that people in these countries have a lower quality of life and more poor medical care than what is offered in high-income countries.

In the PURE study, data on 162,500 adults with ages between 35 and 70 years have been reviewed during a follow-up period of 9.5 years. Among the high-income countries were Canada, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates; those in the middle income were Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Iran, Malaysia, Palestine, the Philippines, Poland, Turkey and South Africa, and Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe were in line.

Extrapolated results

Yusuf has said that the results that have been seen in these countries can be transferred to others with similar economic, social and similar health systems. For him, in addition to the increase in cancer mortality in high-income countries, an important conclusion of this work is that in these countries the majority of hospital deaths and admissions were due to non-communicable (non-infectious) diseases. Also, the high rate of cardiovascular disease and mortality due to these diseases in low-income countries compared to that in countries with more income is not related to cardiovascular risk factors, which in these countries are less frequent, and that there are One is an inverse association between health care and effective treatments and deaths, "so we can say that the lower quality of care can justify, in part, that higher mortality in countries with less income ."

The author of PURE has concluded that the high rate of cardiovascular diseases and cardiovascular mortality in low-income countries is related to differences in access to health services or, sometimes, to lack of access, since in some areas are not even available, which translates into less use of preventive drugs and less hospitalization. "We believe that improving access and quality of health systems is key to reducing the number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases in low and middle-income countries."

During the presentation of the results of the PURE study, which are published in The Lancet magazine and in which 38 researchers from 21 countries participated, it was recalled that more than 70% of cardiovascular diseases in the world are related to factors of modifiable risk. Some of these are common to all countries, such as hypertension and low levels of education, but others vary according to the income of the countries. In those with less income, pollution and unhealthy diets directly affect the health of its inhabitants. These factors are as important as others that have been given much more attention for years, such as obesity, reduced salt intake, high cholesterol, diet, physical activity, smoking and high consumption of alcohol. The control and prevention of these are key to reducing heart disease.

In their final conclusion, the study researchers have highlighted the need to improve prevention programs in low and middle income countries, which focus on risk factors that have a great impact on preventing cardiovascular disease and overall mortality. , emphasizing the aforementioned risk factors. Health authorities should focus their preventive policies on the specific needs of each country to reduce the number of deaths and comorbidities associated with cardiovascular diseases.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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