There are no community-based studies to assess the incidence of heart failure, but hospital-based data from the Trivandrum Heart Failure Registry shows that the State has a much younger demography – at least 12 years younger – suffering from heart failure compared to western countries such as the U.S.
Heart failure is the inability of the heart to pump blood as required by the body. Breathlessness, swelling of ankles, and fatigue are the common symptoms and some of the causes include diseases of heart muscles, heart valves or blood vessels in the heart.
People tended to confuse heart failure with cardiac arrest, though the latter was the risk people ran if heart failure was not attended to in time, said a team of cardiologists at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences at a press meet on Friday. It was part of the run-up to the Amrita Heart Failure Update 2018, a one-day meet of cardiologists from India and abroad on Sunday.
Coronary artery diseases were the most common cause of heart failure, accounting for 71% of all cases and India had among the highest heart failure rates in the world, said K.U. Natarajan, professor and head of the department at Amrita.
The estimated incidence of heart failure in India is about 1% of the adult population, which translates to at least 8 to 10 million patients across the country.
Old age is associated with higher incidence of heart failure.
While the incidence in people above the age of 65 is one in 100 persons, for those above the age of 75, it is seven per 100 persons.
Risk factors
Among the risk factors, hypertension was said to be the leading cause in the country, and in Kerala, diabetes had also emerged as a major risk factor for developing heart failure, said Dr. Vijaykumar M., professor of cardiology at Amrita.
The increasing incidence of diabetes was causing a spike in the number of heart failure cases too, he added.
