Trends in cardiovascular disease in Australia and in the world

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death globally, despite recent declines in cardiovascular mortality, and its contemporary burden remains to be adequately addressed.][3][4][5][6][7] In this issue of the journal, Sarink and collaborators report on 787,115 subjects from Western Australia, aged 35 to 84 years, highlighting that most CVD events, distinguished as coronary heart disease (CHD), cerebrovascular disease (CeVD) and peripheral arterial disease (PAD), occurred in older adults.They also observed a trend towards worsening prevalence in young adults for most CVD subtypes.CHD was defined as acute myocardial infarction (AMI), unstable angina, stable angina or other chronic forms of ischaemic heart disease; CeVD included cerebral infarction, transient ischaemic attack, precerebral or cerebral artery disease without infarction, or unspecified stroke or intracerebral haemorrhage; and PAD as atherosclerosis of the aorta, renal arteries or arteries of the extremities, unspecified peripheral vascular disease. 8Intriguingly, they found that the incidence of CVD subtypes was decreasing in middle-aged and elderly adults, but was stable or increasing among younger adults less than 55 years of age.This can potentially be explained by a higher prevalence of diabetes and obesity in the younger population.