Cardiovascular disease is widespread in developing countries, but little is known about cardiovascular risk profiles in rural communities. To assess the importance of high blood pressure in a rural district of Ecuador, CECOMET, a research group based in Esmeraldas, in collaboration with the Istituto Mario Negri, Milan, Italy, screened half the adult population (4284 of the 8876 adults) who lived in the area. Over a third of those screened had high blood pressure, of whom less than 1% had their hypertension well controlled by treatment.
The investigators monitored all deaths for over two years-cardiovascular diseases were the primary cause of death in the adult population. Of the individuals who died of a cardiovascular disease, four out of five had a history of high blood pressure.
Mariella Anselmi from CECOMET and Gianni Tognoni from Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche "Mario Negri" comment on the most challenging problems: "Our findings indicate that high blood pressure is a more serious problem-in terms of numbers of people affected and the degree of hypertension-than previously estimated for Ecuador and Latin America. The consequences of hypertension are clear from the mortality data. Of particular concern is that most people that died from cardiovascular disease in our study were younger than 70 years (compared with the established figure of around a quarter in developed countries). Most deaths could have been avoided in our study population if essential care and drugs had been accessible and affordable."
Contact: Dr Gianni Tognoni, Department of Cardiovascular Research, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche "Mario Negri", Via Eritrea 62 20157 Milano, Italy;
T) 39-023-901-4468;
F) 39-023-320-0049;
E) tognoni@marionegri.it
The Lancet