Heart ailments continue to rise in Telangana

Indian Heart and Stroke Association analysis points to many factors that make Indians vulnerable to heart disease

Hyderabad: Almost every major study, public health estimates, clinical observations by doctors, and even insurance claims point towards a common trend. The burden of heart disease, not only in Telangana State but across the country, is on the rise. Heart disease has become the number one cause of mortality and a silent epidemic among Indians.

An indirect indication of the rise in heart disease is the ever-increasing number of insurance claims. Based on the data provided by insurance aggregators, heart disease-related health insurance treatment claims were 9 per cent to 12 per cent in 2019-2020. In the next few years, by 2023-24, the insurance claims grew to 18 per cent to 20 per cent, a clear reflection of the prevalence of the heart diseases among general public.

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The Accidental Deaths and Suicides India (ADSI)- 2022 of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), in 2022, has indicated a 12.5 per cent rise in deaths due to heart attacks. In 2021, according to the NCRB data, there were a total of 28,413 fatalities due to heart attacks, which increased to 32,457 by 2022.

Interestingly, due to a variety of reasons including stress, genes and erratic lifestyle, men are outnumbering women in suffering heart attacks that cause sudden deaths. Roughly, for every one woman who suffers a heart attack, there are six men who experience a life-threatening heart episode.

The NCRB data has indicated that a total of 28,005 men in the country were victims of sudden death due to heart attacks compared to 4,402 women during the same time frame. Based on the Indian Heart Association paper ‘Cardiac Disease Among South Asians: A Silent Epidemic’, 50 per cent of the heart attacks in Indian men occur under 50 years of age.

The NCRB data has indicted that in the 30 years to 45 years age group category, out of the 9,722 sudden deaths due to heart attacks in 2022, men comprised of 8,670 while a total of 1,049 women in the same group suffered a life-threatening heart attack. Similarly, in the 45 to 60 years of age group, in 2022, a total of 12,290 persons had died of heart attack out of which men were 10,854 while there were 1,436 women.

In Telangana, based on the NCRB-2022 statistics, a total of 282 individuals died of sudden heart attack out of which men were 257 and women were about 27. In Andhra Pradesh, in the same year, there were 176 fatal heart attack cases out of which 162 were men while the rest of 14 cases were of women.

Analysis from public health researchers including Indian Heart and Stroke Association (IHSA), the major factors that make Indians vulnerable to heart disease include genetic predisposition, metabolic deregulation, cardiomyopthy (weak heart muscle), consumption of meat, saturated fats, trans fats, junk foods, high level of stress and sedentary lifestyle.