TEHRAN – Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the cause of 42 percent of deaths in the country, Tahereh Samavat, an expert in cardiovascular diseases of the Health Ministry’s Department of Non-Communicable Diseases, has said.

She made the remarks on the occasion of World Heart Day, observed and celebrated annually on September 29.

CVDs are a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels. An estimated 17.9 million people died from CVDs in 2019, representing 32 percent of all global deaths. Of these deaths, 85 percent were due to heart attack and stroke. Over three-quarters of CVD deaths take place in low- and middle-income countries.

Most cardiovascular diseases can be prevented by addressing behavioral risk factors such as tobacco use, physical inactivity unhealthy diet and obesity, physical inactivity, and harmful use of alcohol. The effects of behavioral risk factors may show up in individuals as raised blood pressure, raised blood glucose, raised blood lipids, and overweight and obesity.

In Iran, cardiovascular diseases are responsible for 42 percent of deaths in the country, she stated.

Air pollution is effective in causing coronary artery diseases and dangerous cardiac arrhythmias that lead to sudden deaths, she said, adding, to solve this problem, we need to distribute the population properly and improve the country's transportation fleet.

A health program called “Ma” (literally meaning Us) starts from the health networks and continues to the comprehensive urban health service centers, and in the Sib system, we call on people aged 30 and above to check diabetes, blood pressure (on two occasions), blood lipids (cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and Glyceride). If there are signs of diabetes and high blood pressure, people are covered and periodically examined, she explained.

All tests performed in this field to identify patients are free in the health network. Medicines are also delivered to people with high blood pressure in villages free of charge, she stated.

People should be sensitive about their health because the first person who can protect our health is ourselves. Stress is effective in the occurrence of diseases related to the heart and blood vessels, especially blood pressure. Continuous stress increases blood pressure and blood sugar, and these two are the most important risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, she concluded.

The age of CVDs has dropped and the incidence of CVDs among the population under 70 years has steepened during the last decade and reaching from 569 in 2017 to 484 per 100,000 people.

Increasing the rate of CVDs is one of the factors contributing to the increasing costs and economic burden of the disease. Cardiovascular disease costs are very high, so in the European Union (EU) in 2016, the direct and indirect costs (premature death and disability) of CVDs were estimated to be about 25 and 18 billion euros, respectively.

Iran’s Noncommunicable Diseases Control

Iran’s measures to control non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are a role model for the Middle East (West Asia), World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Eastern Mediterranean, Ahmad al-Manzari, said in February 2021.

The UN Interagency Task Force on the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (UNIATF) award went to the Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) Committee of Iran’s Ministry of Health for making an outstanding contribution to NCD prevention and control in 2018.

NCDs kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 71% of all deaths globally. Each year, 15 million people die from an NCD between the ages of 30 and 69 years; over 85% of these "premature" deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.

Some 300,000 Iranians die of NCDs annually in Iran, which means that one-fourth of the country’s population (standing at 80 million) are overweight or obese which also results in developing NCDs.

FB/MG