A Canadian-led international study finds that the causes of a heart attack are the same for people throughout the world, with cigarette smoking one of the main risk factors, the “There hasn’t been a study like this ever in the world,” said lead investigator Dr. Salim Yusuf, head of the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University in Hamilton. “The risk factors that we’ve been able to measure account for 90 percent or more of heart disease. The impact of these risk factors in developing heart disease is global. It’s there in every ethnic group, in men, in women, in every region of the world, in young and old. It means we should be able to prevent the majority of premature heart attacks in the world.”

The research concluded that cigarette smoking and a poor ratio of bad to good cholesterol contribute to two-thirds of all heart attacks worldwide.

The five-year study involved 30,000 people in 52 countries. About half of the participants had suffered a heart attack. They were compared to an equal number of people with no heart disease, matched for age, sex, and city of residence.

“So now we’ll say: What causes the risk factor, not what causes the disease. And from a public-health point of view, there should be no more wallowing about that we need more information. We’ve got it,” said Dr. Sonia Anand, a specialist in vascular medicine and a member of the McMaster research team.

The latest figures show that 15 million people died from heart attacks worldwide in 1998. “The important issue is that the risk factors outlined in this study, the vast majority of them are modifiable,” said Toronto cardiologist Anthony Graham, a spokesman for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. “And what it suggests is that tobacco control is going to be as important in the developing world as it is in the western world.”

The study’s findings are published in issue of the British medical journal
Source: The Lancet. Sept. 11 2004