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Rate of ideal CV health low in Chinese adults
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The estimated percentage of ideal CV health among Chinese adults in 2010 was 0.2%, according to new data from the China Noncommunicable Disease Surveillance Group.
Researchers collected CV health data from a nationally representative sample of 96,121 Chinese adults aged 20 years and older in 2010. They assessed whether participants met the criteria for ideal CV health according to the American Heart Association’s 2020 Strategic Impact Goals, defined as the simultaneous presence of four favorable health behaviors (not smoking, ideal BMI, physical activity at goal, healthy dietary habits) and four favorable health factors (not smoking, untreated total cholesterol < 200 mg/dL, untreated BP < 120 mm Hg systolic/80 mm Hg diastolic, untreated fasting glucose < 100 mg/dL) and no history of CVD.
“The information provided by our study is of crucial importance because currently, [CVD] is the leading cause of death in China,” Yufang Bi, MD, PhD, from Rui-Jin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, said in a press release.
According to the results, the estimated percentage of ideal CV health was 0.2% in Chinese adults (men, 0.1%; women, 0.4%). Overall, 0.7% of Chinese adults (men, 0.4%; women, 1%) had all four ideal health behaviors and 13.5% (men, 5%; women, 22.3%) had all four favorable health factors. A driver of difference between the sexes was the rate of current smoking (men, 54.1%; women, 2.6%; P < .0001).
Of the seven ideal components, men were most likely to have three or four, and women were most likely to have four or five, the researchers reported.
The least common health metric observed was ideal diet, which was present in only 1.6% of Chinese adults in this study.
The most common protective factors for CV health were female sex and younger age.
“These data suggest that, without effective intervention, [CVD] will become epidemic in the near future in China,” Bi and colleagues wrote. “Therefore, both population-wide and high-risk strategies should be implemented with great effort to promote [CV] health in China.”
In a related editorial, K. Srinath Reddy, MSc, MD, DM, said these findings demonstrate “an urgent need to pursue proven pathways of prevention, to swiftly and successfully stall this stampeding epidemic, to ensure that only a small fraction of major CVD events occurs” in Chinese adults aged 70 years or older.
However, “the fact that 76.8% were within the range of three to five metrics holds hope for improvement through effective prevention programs,” Reddy, from the Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi, and the World Heart Federation, Geneva, wrote.
These include initiatives to reduce smoking, curb air pollution, reduce salt intake, increase consumption of fruit and fish, and improve risk detection and risk reduction in clinical settings, he wrote. – by Erik Swain
Disclosures: Bi and Reddy report no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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