Which are the countries with the lowest rates of heart and coronary disease in the world?
Heart and coronary diseases belong to the noncommunicable diseases which cause 70% of all deaths, and only cardiovascular diseases represent 31% of all deaths in the world. The causes of these diseases vary and are usually a combination of many factors, including alcohol and tobacco consummation, unhealthy diet, obesity, stress, diabetes, insufficient physical activity, high blood pressure, etc. As smoking is one of the biggest factors in this issue, it is good having in mind that not only active smokers but also people affected by secondhand smoking have a higher risk of getting a heart disease.
Cardiovascular, coronary and heart attack statistics worldwide show that men are more prone to these diseases than women in general, and as you will see that will also be the case in countries with the lowest rates of coronary heart diseases on our list. One of the reasons, among the usual factors we have noted above that affect both sexes, might lie in specific sex hormones in men that lead to high cholesterol and blood pressure, as shown in a research.
An interesting fact shows that deaths caused by heart and coronary diseases also vary drastically between low- and high-income countries. So, if you were asking yourself why does France have low heart disease rate, here might lie part of the answer, as France holds a high position on the list of 25 Richest Countries in the World by 2017 GDP for example. But, there are also some interesting observations about this question about France that you will see proceeding further on our list.
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Now, on the same issue, the rate of heart disease in Japan has been getting rapidly lower lately. The reasons for that are mostly healthy lifestyle, better results in the prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (which include low obesity and overweight rates, and lower cholesterol rates, to name a few). The similar example is also with cancer. New studies have shown that cancer rates are starting to decline in high-income countries, and rise in low-income countries. But, as low-income and developing countries are less prone to major cancer-causing factors, such as tobacco consumption and being overweight for example, you should not be surprised to find them at among 11 Countries with the Lowest Cancer Rates in the World.
For our research we have used the most reliable source on this issue, and that is the World Health Organization, since they gather information on every aspect of health throughout the world. There we have gained statistics and figures for the countries with the lowest rates of heart and coronary diseases. The data we used consisted of cardiovascular disease statistics worldwide 2014, since we have used Global Status Report on Noncommunicable Diseaes 2014, as being the latest report on these issues.
We have thought which parameters would be the most satisfying to answer your question, whether we should include rates of diseases in general or death rates by heart and coronary diseases. We have chosen to go on death rates, since we have found summarized figures for death rates caused by cardiovascular and heart diseases by country. So, the figures we used for our list of thelowest rates of heart and coronary disease in the world represent age-standardized death rate from cardiovascular diseases by country per 100,000 people for both males and females.
As you will see here which those countries with the lowest rates of heart and coronary disease in the world are, you can also check out the opposite side of the issue in 11 Countries with the Highest Heart Disease Rates in the World. And to see which country has the lowest rate of heart disease, proceed down to our list:
