By ’15, coronary heart cases will treble

6.15 Crore Indians Will Be Affected: Health Min Report

New Delhi: Cases of coronary heart disease (CHD) in India in 2015 are expected to be three times the number reported in 2000. While in 2000, an estimated 2.7 crore Indians were suffering from CHD, the number is expected to increase to 6.15 crore by 2015, according to Union health ministry's latest national health profile projections 2010. In 2005, India was estimated to have 3.5 crore CHD patients while in 2010, the number stood at 4.6 crore.
    An interesting trend, according to the ministry's projections, is the stark increase in CHD cases in the age group of 20-29. While CHD was estimated to have affected 45 lakh Indians in this age group in 2,000, the number progressively increased to 61 lakh in 2005 and 83 lakh in 2010. However in 2015, the number will break the one crore barrier mark–1.04 crore in the age group 20-29 years. What's really stark is the tremendous gap in the number of rural and urban Indians in this age group suffering from CHD. While in 2000, 17.99 lakh rural Indians aged 20-29 and 27.1 lakh urban Indians suffered from CHD, the gap would increase to 23.24 lakh rural and 81 lakh urban Indians in 2015, showing clearly how heart disease would jump manifold in young urban Indians due to their faulty lifestyle. Speaking to TOI, director of interventional cardiology at Moolchand Medcity Dr Deepak Natarajan said, "India will definitely see a huge increase in CHD. The problem is that Indians are doing everything that is wrong – they have no time to exercise, are driven by money and markets, hence eat junk, have no control over their hypertension and have the worst lifestyles in the world. An average person is obese and smokes. India's growth rate is directly linked to the country's spike in heart disease."
    In CHD cases heart's blood supply is blocked by a build-up of fatty substances in coronary arteries. The walls of the arteries can become narrow with fatty deposits. If coronary arteries become narrow, the blood supply gets restricted causing chest pain. If it becomes completely blocked, it causes a heart attack.