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 Five well-known risk factors—overweight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, and diabetes—contribute to more than half of all cardiovascular diseases worldwide. This is according to a study published by scientists of the Global Cardiovascular Risk Consortium.
Dr. Larissa Avilés-Santa, Director, Division of Clinical and Health Services Research at NIMHD and the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos representative of the consortium, co-authored the paper.
The study showed differences in the frequency of the risk factors across the eight global regions. Scientists saw the highest rates for overweight in Latin America, and the highest values for high blood pressure and high cholesterol in Europe. High blood pressure is the most significant factor for the occurrence of heart attacks and strokes. However, the five risk factors merely accounted for about 20% overall mortality risk.
The study’s results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and are based on the data of 1.5 million persons from 34 countries.
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