The Prevalence of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Young and Middle-Age Rural Population in Sarawak, Malaysia

The Prevalence of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Young and Middle-Age Rural Population in Sarawak, Malaysia

Introduction

With the passage of time, the environmental conditions of the world and the eating habits of the people have changed significantly. Earlier, people used to take balanced diet and performed physical activities and these factors helped them a lot in being healthy and fit. However, as the time progressed, the people changed their eating habits due to the changes that occurred in their eating habits. Nowadays, people are too busy in their daily activities and therefore do not find enough time to take balanced meal. Instead, they tend to eat the fast foods that are mostly comprised of fats. This habit has become much common in the youngsters due to their engagements in activities that do not involve much physical activity. These activities contribute a lot towards the risks of cardiovascular diseases (Beacon Hospital, 2013).

It has been reported by the World Health Organization that there is an increase in the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases. These diseases caused 17.1 million deaths around the world in the year 2004. One of the aspects of this report is that 82% of these mortalities occurred in countries that have middle or low income levels. Like other countries, the situation in Malaysia is also not very encouraging as it was reported that in a rural community of the country, 26.3% of the participants who belonged to the age group of 15 year and older had hypertension. Perhaps, South Asia has been indicated by the WHO report as the region that has the highest increase in the percentage of coronary heart disease (CHD). Malaysia is also affected badly by this situation. This research paper aims at ...