Healthy lifestyles to avoid heart disease

Developing countries, especially in Asia, must promote healthy lifestyles from childhood to halt rising obesity and &to= english.pravda.ru/world/2001/01/04/1840.html ' target=_blank>heart disease rates, medical experts said on Thursday. The appeal came ahead of annual World Heart Day, being celebrated on Sunday under the theme of "Children, Adolescents and Heart Disease." Heart disease and strokes, the main &to= english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/379/10913_field.html ' target=_blank>cardiovascular diseases, killed 17 million people last year or one-third of deaths worldwide, according to &to= english.pravda.ru/main/2002/03/22/27143.html ' target=_blank>the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Heart Federation. Risk factors such as smoking and diabetes are on the rise and 18 million children aged under five are already overweight, the WHO said in its 'Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke,' issued on Thursday. "It is critical to the health of future generations that each country find resources and political will to tackle the cardiovascular disease epidemic now," Janet Voute, head of the World Heart Federation, told a news briefing. Judith Mackay, co-author of the Atlas, said that 75 percent of the victims of heart disease live in developing countries. Warning signs are there for Asia, especially for youth in China and Japan, where weight and cholesterol levels are on the rise, according to Mackay, a physician based in Hong Kong, reports Reuters. According to VOANews, the World Health Organization says the global epidemic of heart disease and stroke is now more prevalent in developing countries than in industrialized countries. A new report by WHO says these twin diseases are the leading causes of death worldwide. The World Health Organization reports heart disease and stroke kill some 17 million people a year. This is almost one-third of all deaths globally. It warns the number of deaths will grow to 24 million by 2030 if preventive measures are not taken now. The report shatters a few myths. It notes cardiovascular disease is no longer mainly a problem of middle-aged men in rich countries. Statistics show 75-percent of heart disease now is found in developing countries and the epidemic hits both men and women in almost equal numbers. WHO Cardiovascular Disease Coordinator, Shanthi Mendis, says only a few risk factors are responsible for this &to= english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/377/12415_drugs.html ' target=_blank>global epidemic. Erdogan pledged to overhaul Turkey's criminal-justice system by an Oct. 6 EU deadline and scrap a plan to criminalize extramarital affairs that the EU said would violate European standards of equality between the sexes and civil liberties. Turkey has been striving to become the EU's only Muslim country since 1987 and was named a candidate for membership in 1999. An EU rejection of entry talks may deter foreign investment and hinder government efforts to tackle unemployment of more than 12 percent and debt of $208 billion. ``We are very determined to implement the reform laws,'' Erdogan told journalists. He spoke of a ``positive foundation'' for the European Commission's Oct. 6 recommendations on whether Turkey is eligible to start membership talks. Turkish bonds and stocks gained and the currency rose after the comments. The lira strengthened 1 percent to 1,494,750 per dollar as of 2:05 p.m. in Istanbul. The benchmark domestic bond maturing in February 2006 rose, pushing yields down about 1 percentage point to 25 percent. The National 100 Index of the biggest companies jumped 2.8 percent, reports Bloomberg.

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