Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death worldwide as during Covid-19 from 2019 to 2022 around three million people died but as per estimates shared by the World Health Organization, the CVDs killed around 20.6 million people every year across the globe, and around 80 percent of these deceased were from low and middle-income countries. These views were shared by Consultant Cardiologist, National Medical Centre, United Hospital Karachi, DrRehan Omar on Wednesday. He was addressing a seminar on healthy heart, healthy nation arranged by the Medical Center of the University of Karachi.
The event was held at the auditorium of the old pharmacy building. He expressed that in 2020, an estimated 523 million people had some form of CVDs of which approximately 19 million deaths were attributable to the CVDs. He informed the audience that every two minutes one person died of heart disease. Sharing another report, he said that an estimated 783 million people would be affected by diabetes by 2045.
DrRehan while referring to a report published in the year 2018 said that 1.13 billion people were suffering from hypertension due to socio-economic problems. The uses of tobacco, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity are a few main causes of heart disease. We must promote awareness and prefer timely diagnosis and treatment approach, he added.
Meanwhile, the Consultant Cardiologist at the National Medical Center DrMansoor Ahmed said that this was so alarming that our children and teenagers were facing obesity problems due to which they were suffering from diabetes and heart diseases. He termed that one of the main reasons for the issue was consuming junk foods. It is not possible to eliminate junk food from society because more money is spent on its marketing than health, DrMansoor Ahmed stressed that the trend of rapid increase in smoking needs to be stopped with immediate effect. He urged to adopt practical measures to prevent diabetes, obesity, and other diseases from society and demanded that edible items containing high carbohydrates should be used less especially sugar which is used a lot in Pakistan though this is like a white poison. Later, the KU Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi said that around 16 to 18 percent of the total deaths in Pakistan were caused by heart diseases, while 40 percent of Pakistan’s population suffers from heart diseases. He observed that the lack of awareness is one of the major reasons for the high ratio of CVDs in the country. He said that people usually consulted doctors after a heart attack which was a sad thing. They do not take their health issues seriously and hardly bother to adopt a healthy lifestyle. KU VC Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi believed that early diagnosis could prevent heart-related disease for which awareness should be spread among the masses. KU Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy Professor DrFayyazVaid and the consultant at KU Medical Center DrAkmalWaheed also spoke on this occasion.
