Growing Epidemic of Coronary Heart Disease in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Abstract

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the single largest cause of death in the developed countries and is one of the leading causes of disease burden in developing countries. In 2001, there were 7.3 million deaths due to CHD worldwide. Three-fourths of global deaths due to CHD occurred in the low and middle-income countries. The rapid rise in CHD burden in most of the low and middle and income countries is due to socio-economic changes, increase in life span and acquisition of lifestyle related risk factors. The CHD death rate, however, varies dramatically across the developing countries. The varying incidence, prevalence, and mortality rates reflect the different levels of risk factors, other competing causes of death, availability of resources to combat CVD, and the stage of epidemiologic transition that each country or region finds itself. The economic burden of CHD is equally large but solutions exist to manage this growing burden.

Comparison of mHealth and Face-to-Face Interventions for Smoking Cessation Among People Living With HIV: Meta-Analysis (Preprint)

“…For instance, the included studies were conducted in a high-income setting, which potentially limits generalization of the results to low-and middle-income settings, where today the burden of HIV and tobacco-related illnesses and deaths are most severe. 2 Nonetheless, our findings may be generalizable to other vulnerable groups in high-income countries. Secondly, the intervention arms in the included studies all comprised multi-component strategies, which may have influenced our results; however, tests for heterogeneity revealed that the studies included in our analyses were in fact homogeneous.…”

“…Furthermore, low income settings are now experiencing an epidemiological transition from infectious diseases to chronic diseases, 2 as a result of dramatic changes in diet and lifestyle. The epidemiological transition in resource limited setting is happening over a shorter time frame than that experienced historically by highincome countries.…”

Cardiac Imaging Modalities in the Diagnosis of Coronary Artery Disease

“…Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death in advanced countries and its prevalence is increasing among developing countries [1,2]. Various less-invasive imaging modalities are increasingly used in the diagnosis of CAD including coronary CT angiography, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and cardiac single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET) and integrated SPECT/CT and PET/CT [3].…”

Aspirin and Diabetes Care in Nigeria: Treatment or Exploitation?

“…The rate at which new cases of type 2 diabetes and/or hypertension now occur is approaching epidemic proportions globally, and these conditions are principal drivers of cardiovascular deaths almost everywhere [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. But while such untimely deaths are declining due to effective interventions, this is not the case in Sub-Saharan Africa including Nigeria [1][2][3]8].…”