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New Study: Smoking Is One of the Leading Causes of Most Heart Attacks Worldwide [08/30-2]
Excerpts from: Causes of most heart attacks same worldwide, Canadian-led study finds
By SHERYL UBELACKER Canada.com [08/29/04]
A landmark Canadian-led international study has found that the risk factors for
heart attack are the same for people around the world, from the fisherman in
Vancouver to the female office worker in Hong Kong to the sheep farmer in
Australia.
"There hasn't been a study like this ever in the world," lead investigator Dr. Salim Yusuf of McMaster University said Sunday from Munich, Germany, where he presented the findings at a European Society of Cardiology conference.
"The risk factors that we've been able to measure account for 90 per cent or more of heart disease.
"It means we should be able to prevent the majority of premature heart attacks in the world."
The most telling of those risk factors are cigarette smoking and a poor ratio of bad to good cholesterol, which together predict two-thirds of heart attacks worldwide, the study suggests, followed by high blood pressure, diabetes, abdominal obesity, stress and depression, a lack of daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, and a lack of daily exercise.
Modest alcohol consumption - three to five drinks per week - was found to be a slightly protective factor.
"There's something called the 50 per cent myth that is bantered around, that we can only explain heart disease events in about 50 per cent of cases based on these conventional risk factors," said Anand, adding that the belief has fuelled intense research for a "unique protein or something else that causes heart attacks."
"So the novel, or the kind of slam-dunk, aspect of this study is we have very large numbers, we measured these conventional factors in a wide range of people and we were able to show that we can predict heart disease in 90 per cent of the cases."
To achieve their far-ranging results, the research team studied almost 30,000 people in 52 countries, about half of whom had suffered a heart attack. Those 15,000 participants were compared with roughly an equal number of people with no heart disease, who were matched for age, sex and city of residence.
All participants were followed over five years, until March 2003, and tested for cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as questioned about smoking, diet and exercise.
"This has been a mammoth effort in trying to get people around the world to work together," Yusuf said of the study, which was estimated to cost $10 million and was funded by 37 international sources.
The results, to be published in the Sept. 11 issue of the British medical journal the Lancet, should have a huge impact on future heart-disease research, said Anand, by "refocusing what we look at.
All participants were followed over five years, until March 2003, and tested for cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as questioned about smoking, diet and exercise.
"This has been a mammoth effort in trying to get people around the world to work together," Yusuf said of the study, which was estimated to cost $10 million and was funded by 37 international sources.
The results, to be published in the Sept. 11 issue of the British medical journal the Lancet, should have a huge impact on future heart-disease research, said Anand, by "refocusing what we look at.
In Canada, Anand said the findings should spur the federal and provincial governments to hammer home even harder the message that people need to butt out and slim down to keep their hearts healthy.
"From a public-health point of view, the message is simple," she said. "We know what causes it. The challenge is now to prevent it."
click here to view this study (PDF)
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