China and Japan face epidemic of heart disease

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7467.643

BMJ 2004;329:643 (18 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7467.643

News roundup

China and Japan face epidemic of heart disease

Hong Kong Jane Parry

Asia is facing a cardiovascular disease epidemic as a result of increases in obesity, high blood pressure, and smoking, show data analysed in the Asia Pacific cohort studies collaboration.

The findings are based on data from 600 000 people involved in 43 studies in nine places: China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and New Zealand. Whereas many western countries are grappling with rising obesity and have seen a peak in rates of smoking, in Asian countries—most notably China—several major risk factors are all rising.

"The pace of economic development in this part of the world is very fast, and smoking rates have increased rapidly too," said Professor T H Lam, head of the department of community medicine at the University of Hong Kong, one of the centres in the collaboration. "This has happened together with a higher fat diet, an increasingly westernised . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

Mortality and smoking in Hong Kong: case-control study of all adult deaths in 1998: T H Lam, S Y Ho, A J Hedley, K H Mak, and R Peto
BMJ 2001 323: 361. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]