Deaths from cardiovascular disease rising in India, study finds

Death due to cardiovascular disease is on the rise in India, causing more than one quarter of all deaths in the country in 2015 and affecting rural populations and young adults the most, suggests a study published today in The Lancet Global Health.

This work is the first nationally representative study to measure cardiovascular mortality in India. Led by Dr. Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, it found that rates of dying from ischaemic heart disease – cardiac issues caused by a narrowing of the heart’s arteries – in populations aged 30 to 69 increased rapidly in rural areas of India and surpassed those in urban areas between the year 2000 and 2015.

In contrast, the probability of dying from stroke decreased overall, but increased in India’s northeastern states, where a third of premature stroke deaths occurred and only one sixth of the population lives. In these states, deaths due to stroke were about three times higher than the national average.

READ THE ARTICLE HERE: The Lancet Global Health or  directly download the PDF

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