Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factor In Higher Socio-Economic Class Of Rawalpindi/Islamabad Areas

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:
Cardiovascular disease, especially atherosclerotic heart disease and stroke are leading causes of mortality in the world and probably same is true in Pakistan. The relationship between nutrient intake and blood lipids and lipo-protein cholesterol levels is of interest because of the latter’s association with coronary heart disease (CHD)’. It was, therefore, considered worthwhile to assess the risk for CHD in a population based sample of individuals belonging to higher socioeconomic class.

MATERIAL AND METHODS:
The study includes 317 apparently normal healthy subjects. 268 males and 49 females, belonging to higher socio-economic groups of Islam abad (High Civil officials, businessmen, lawyers etc.) of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The social status was determined according to the nature of work and the income.

-
At regular intervals the reliability of the procedures was tested with commercially available serum containing known contents of parameters analysed.

RESULTS:
Mean value for total cholesterol and for each lipoprotein fractions in plasma of 268 male and that of 49 female subjects are shown in table 1. The pooled data was compared for the variables determined among male and female subjects by applying students test and was found to be (O.O1>p) non significant.

DISCUSSION:
The present study was designed to investigate the CHD risk in subjects belonging to higher socioeconomic status. The results of this study demonstrate that total cholesterol and lipo-protein fractions are comparable with the findings of similar study conducted in Boston, USA, the purpose of the study was to evaluate inter-relationships between blood lipids levels and other risk factors for myocardial infarction. The CHD risks were calculated by dividing the LDL-C by HDL-C. Our data (table-2) showed that males are at higher risk than females. About 20 per cent of male population is carrying 2 x average risk and about 5.0 per cent is carrying 3 x average risk.