Heart diseases in developing countries

Developing countries, especially in Asia, need to promote healthy lifestyles from childhood to halt the rise of obesity and heart disease rates. This appeal has been made ahead of the annual World Heart Day, being celebrated on 26th September 2004, under the theme of "Children, Adolescents and Heart Disease."
Heart disease and strokes, the main cardiovascular diseases, killed 17 million people last year or one-third of deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Heart Federation. Risk factors such as smoking and diabetes are on the rise and 18 million children aged under five are already overweight, according to the WHO. This is critical to the health of future generations that each country finds resources and political will to tackle the cardiovascular disease epidemic. It has been found that 75 percent of the victims of heart disease live in developing countries. Warning signs are there for Asia, especially for youth in China and Japan, where weight and cholesterol levels are on the rise. China already accounts for 1.6 million deaths each year from strokes and 703,000 from heart disease. The good news, according to WHO, is that heart disease and stroke levels are falling in some developed countries, including the United States and parts of Europe.