Health authorities worldwide must scale up efforts to curb global growth in heart disease and strokes, turning more attention to problems that start in childhood and are now hitting poor nations hardest, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
"The burden of this epidemic no longer lies among middle-aged men in developed countries," said Dr. Judith Mackay, senior policy adviser at WHO, launching a guide to cardiovascular diseases. The 112-page Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke was produced by WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The risk factors start in childhood," Mackay told reporters. "So we have to focus on children under 10 years of age. It's not true to say that children are somehow protected until they are 15, or 20 years old."
Heart disease and stroke _ which are fueled by lack of exercise, smoking and bad diet _ kill some 17 million people worldwide each year. Some 75 percent of the deaths occur in developing countries.
The Western lifestyle has taken hold among large sections of the population of megacities of countries including China and India, with many switching from diets heavy in vegetables and staple grains to much higher consumption of fats, meats and sugar, while physical labor gives way to more sedentary work. Cardiovascular disease rates there have spiraled, and experts fear that today's youngsters will grow into tomorrow's heart disease and stroke victims.
"Governments are badly neglecting a preventable public health crisis that will cripple public health services," said Janet Voute, head of the Geneva-based World Heart Federation.
By 2020, heart disease and strokes are together expected to be the leading killer worldwide, taking over from HIV/AIDS.
In May, WHO member nations agreed on a strategy to head off the worldwide explosion in diseases linked to diet and physical activity. The nonbinding accord set out recommendations such as the reduction of sugar, fat and salt in processed food; the control of food marketing to children; as well as more comprehensive nutrition labeling and health education.
However, Mackay said governments must make further efforts and raise the profile of the problem.
"These diseases are not up there being counted as they should be," she said, contrasting the global reaction to last year's epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS _ which killed 774 from over 8,000 infected with the flu-like illness, mainly in Asia.
"You have one case of SARS and it's on the front pages worldwide. Cardiovascular disease doesn't get that attention."
(jf-sc)
