NEW DELHI: Cases of coronary heart disease (CHD) between 2000 and 2015 are expected to nearly triple in India. While an estimated 2.7 crore Indians were suffering from CHD in 2000, the number is expected to increase to 6.15 crore by 2015, according to Union health ministry's latest national health profile projections 2010.
In 2005, India was estimated to have 3.5 crore CHD patients while in 2010, the number stood at 4.6 crores.
An interesting trend, according to the ministry's projections, is the stark increase in CHD cases in the age group of 20-29.
While CHD was estimated to have affected 45 lakh Indians in this age group of 20-29 in 2000, the number progressively increased to 61 lakh in 2005 and 83 lakh in 2010. However in 2015, the number will break the one crore barrier mark – 1.04 crore in the age group 20-29 years.
What's really stark is the tremendous gap in the number of rural and urban Indians in this age group suffering from CHD. While in 2000, 17.99 lakh rural Indians aged 20-29 and 27.1 lakh urban Indians suffered from CHD, the gap would increase to 23.24 lakh rural and 81 lakh urban Indians in 2015, showing clearly how heart disease would jump manifold in young urban Indians due to their faulty lifestyle.
The rural-urban divide in the numbers is also going to be widest in 2015. While in 2000, rural Indians suffered more from CHD than urban Indians (1.4 crores against 1.2 crore respectively), the number would stand at 2.5 crore rural and 3.6 crore urban Indians from CHD in 2015.
However, in all the four years (2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015) the age group with highest number of CHD patients stands at 40-49 years. While the number in 2000 in this age group was 61 lakh, it increased to 83 lakh in 2005, 1.09 crore in 2010 and 1.43 crore in 2015.
Speaking to TOI, director of interventional cardiology at Moolchand Medcity Dr Deepak Natarajan said, "India will definitely see a huge increase in CHD though I don't completely agree with the ministry's figures. The problem is that Indians are doing everything that is wrong – they have no time to exercise, are driven my money and markets, hence eat junk, have no control over their hypertension and have the worst lifestyles in the world. An average person is obese and smokes. India's growth rate is directly linked to the country's spike in heart disease."
CHD is when your heart's blood supply is blocked or interrupted by a build-up of fatty substances in the coronary arteries. Over time, the walls of your arteries can become narrow with fatty deposits known as atherosclerosis. If your coronary arteries become narrow, the blood supply gets restricted causing angina (chest pains). If a coronary artery becomes completely blocked, it causes a heart attack.
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