Experts task Nigerians on regular cardiovascular checks and healthy living

…as the world celebrates World Heart Day
Alexander Chiejina

More often than not, some Nigerians have been confronted with the issue of managing cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) like heart attacks and strokes, mainly caused by a blockage that prevents blood from flowing to the heart or brain, which experts believe is number one cause of death globally.

Sadly, recent statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests that more people die annually from CVDs than from any other cause with an estimated 17.1 million people dying from CVDs in 2004, which represents 29 percent of all global deaths. Of these deaths, an estimated 7.2 million were due to coronary heart disease and 5.7 million were due to stroke.

In the report, low and middle income countries are disproportionally affected: 82 percent of CVD deaths take place and occur almost equally in men and women. However, it is projected that by 2030, almost 23.6 million people will die from CVDs, mainly from heart disease and stroke.

As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to celebrate World Heart Day every September 27th, medical experts in the country have tasked Nigerians to observe regular checkups and live healthy lives in a bid to safeguard themselves from this impending danger.

In a recent interview with BusinessDay, Anam Mbakwem, consultant nephrologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-araba, Lagos said that cardiovascular disease is caused by disorders of the heart and blood vessels, and includes coronary heart disease (heart attacks), cerebrovascular disease (stroke), raised blood pressure (hypertension), peripheral artery disease, rheumatic heart disease, congenital heart disease and heart failure

Mbakwem stated that though no country wide data on CVD in Nigeria, available data from 1990 national survey on NCDs in Nigeria shows that they have hypertension with only 11.2 percent of Nigerians having hypertension with only 33.8 percent of these aware that they have hypertension.

In his words “The burden of CVDs in the world is enormous and the majority of those affected are in developing countries. Patients denied access to health care for CVD or deterred by high costs from seeking it cause public health systems to incur even greater health care costs in the long run. This is as a result of the need to treat the same patients later at greater expense because the disease is more advanced. The potential costs of this CVD epidemic for African countries are staggering.
However, cardiovascular disease (direct and indirect) is estimated to cost the United States about US$300 billion annually, equal to the entire gross domestic product of the African continent. Clearly, even a fraction of such cost has the potential to cause enormous damage to the economies and development trajectories of African countries.”

Lending his view, Olufemi Fasanmade, Consultant Endocrinologist at LUTH stated the most important behavioural risk factors of heart disease and stroke are unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and tobacco use. Fasanmade disclosed that the effects of unhealthy diet and physical inactivity may show up in individuals as raised blood pressure, raised blood glucose, raised blood lipids, and overweight and obesity are intermediate risk factors to one developing CVDs.

In his words “The good news is that 80 percent of premature heart attacks and strokes are preventable. Healthy diet, regular physical activity, and not using tobacco products are the keys to prevention. More importantly, having one’s blood pressure checked, knowing one’s blood sugar and body lipids is essential. This is because raised blood glucose (diabetes) and blood cholesterol increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Blood cholesterol needs to be controlled through a healthy diet and, if necessary, by appropriate medications.”

Giving this economic management of this disease which negatively affects the GDP of nations, there is the need for a comprehensive action which seeks to reduce the risks in Nigeria with strategies that target individuals at high risk of CVDs. Examples of population wide interventions to reduce CVDs include comprehensive tobacco control policies, taxation to reduce the intake of foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt, building walking and cycle ways to increase physical activity, providing healthy school meals to children.

For instance, in the United Kingdom, a government-promoted program in consort with the food and drink manufacturing industry successfully reduced salt content in almost a quarter of manufactured foods over several years. In Finland, community-based and national interventions, including health promotion and nutrition interventions, led to population-wide reductions in cholesterol and other risks, closely followed by a precipitous decline in heart disease and stroke mortality.

For Solomon Kadiri, Consultant Nephrologist, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, there is a need for increased government investment through national programmes aimed at prevention and control of CVDs and other non communicable diseases.

In his words “CVD risk factors can be reduced through community based programmes for integrated prevention of NCDs, development of standards of care and cost-effective case management for CVD, developing feasible surveillance methods to assess the pattern and trends of major CVDs and risk factors and to monitor prevention and control initiatives.”