China faces an impending epidemic of cardiovascular illnesses and
should make immediate changes in unhealthy lifestyles for better
prevention, a public health official said in Beijing on Sunday.
Cancers, cerebral vascular diseases and heart illnesses have become
the top three health-related killers of China's approximately 450
million urban residents, replacing respiratory system diseases,
infectious diseases and tuberculosis, prevalent in the 1950s, she
said.
In
addition, these illnesses, associated with a great improvement in
living conditions, are preying on increasing numbers of rural
people, said Kong Lingzhi, an official from the Department of
Disease Control under the Ministry of Health.
She blamed a lack of physical exercise, unbalanced diets and
smoking as major causes of the epidemic, a "serious public health
problem which leads not only to extraordinary increases in medical
expenses, but also to severe impacts on people's life."
More than 100 million Chinese, or about one in every 13 people in
China, are estimated to have high blood pressure, a leading cause
of many heart and brain problems.
China has an average of 1.5 million stroke victims and 750,000
cases of myocardial infarction each year, Kong said at a forum on
strategies for heart disease control.
China has been listed by the World Health Organization among
countries with a rapidly increasing incidence of cardiovascular
disease, together with India, Russia, and some eastern European
nations, according to Dr. Hu Dayi at the People's Hospital of
Beijing.
Kong Lingzhi said China must establish a comprehensive network for
disease prevention and control, involving the participation of the
government, medical researchers, mass media, and the public.
Despite the proposed measures, experts fear that disease-control
efforts may be difficult because the number of people susceptible
to such diseases, such as old people, smokers and overweight
people, are growing.
About 240 million Chinese over the age of 20 are overweight, and
more than 30 million of them are obese according to international
standards, Kong said.
A
sedentary lifestyle, excessive fat- and salt-rich food intake, and
growing psychological pressures make people increasingly vulnerable
to cardiovascular disease, said Dr. Hu.
He
said the public, particularly the youth, should be educated to
participate more in calorie-burning activities, such as walking,
jogging, swimming, and hiking.
The forum was organized in celebration of World Heart Day, which
falls on Sunday and was established by the World Heart Federation,
a non-governmental organization dedicated to the global prevention
and control of cardiovascular disease.
(Xinhua News
Agency September 30, 2002)