The World Heart Federation (WHF) will be celebrating World Heart Day (WHD) on September 25, aiming at strengthening the global cardiovascular diseases (CVD) preventive efforts.
The Day with the theme "Healthy weight, healthy shape" is being organised in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other United Nations (UN) organisations.
The CVD represent the major health burden in the industrialised countries and a rapidly growing health problem in developing countries. They affect people in their peak mid-life years, disrupting the future of the families dependent on them and undermining the development of nations by depriving them of workers in their most productive years.
According to the WHO estimates, 16.7 million people around the globe die of CVD each year, while CVD became responsible for every third death globally. Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is already the number one killer in the world, which accounts for 7.22 million deaths.
Previously, the CVD were considered an existing and threatening health problem in developed world as a result of industrialisation and technology development.
Later on, change in the quality of life, strengthening of surveillance systems and analytical studies of the CVD risk factors exposed the growing incidence of that problem in developing countries as well.
Adopting inactive life style and unhealthy habits by populations in addition to hereditary traits all made most communities more likely to be affected by the CVD. Today, men, women and children are at risk.
Reports indicate that 80 percent of the CVD burden is in low and middle-income countries. And now the developing countries are catching up the threatening danger of the CVD.
Epidemiological projections suggest that for CHD, the mortality for all developing countries will increase by 120 percent for women and 137 percent for men.