Heart disease on rise among youth: Expert

Tirupati, Jan 20 (UNI) Heart disease among youngsters in India is increasing due to genetic problems, lack of physical exercise, changing lifestyles and growing work pressure in urban setups, Chennai based Apollo Hospitals Senior Cardio Thoracic Surgeon L F Sridhar said here today.

Speaking in a press conference, Dr Sridhar said timely check-ups were essential to take care of the heart. The World Health Organization (WHO) had warned that Indians, genetically prone to cardiac disorders, would constitute about 60 per cent of the world's cardiac patients by 2010, he added.

A survey by WHO also revealed that over 17 million people died of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack or stroke in 2005, and over 80 per cent of the deaths occurred in low and middle-income countries. It added currently India was home to over 60 million coronary heart patients and more than two million patients were succumbing to the disease every year.

Dr Sridhar claimed that Appollo Hospital, Chennai had performed about 55,000 heart operations and of these, about 30,000 were coronary bypass surgeries in the past two decades.

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