15% of deaths in India were due to heart diseases in 1990

15% of deaths in India were due to heart diseases in 1990; now up to 28% The number of people affected by cardiac diseases has doubled

International News : Cardiac ailments killed more Indians in 2016 (28%) than any other non-communicable disease, said a new study published in the September 2018 issue of health journal The Lancet. These are double the numbers reported in 1990 when heart disease caused 15% of deaths in India.

Deaths due to cardiovascular diseases in India increased from 1.3 million in 1990 to 2.8 million in 2016, and more than half the deaths caused by heart ailments in 2016 were in persons less than 70 years of age, according to the study, ‘The Changing Patterns of Cardiovascular Diseases and Their Risk Factors in the States of India: the Global burden of Disease Study 1990-2016’.

Cardiovascular diseases are a collective of various kinds of heart ailments, stroke and diseases of blood vessels nourishing the limbs.

Of them, coronary artery disease, also called ischemic heart disease–symptomised by the hardening of arteries–and strokes account for most deaths.

Ischemic heart disease caused 17.8% of deaths and strokes caused 7.1%, according to the study. Rheumatic heart disease, caused by acute rheumatic fever, now bears a lower disease burden in India: It causes 1.1% of total deaths. But India still contributes to 38% of its global disease burden, according to the study.

The number of people affected by cardiac diseases has doubled, the study estimated. About 54.5 million people were affected by the disease in 2016 compared to 25.7 million in 1990. Hardening of arteries was more common in men than women while strokes affect both sexes equally...Read more