Alarming increase in heart diseases among youths seen over the last 5 years – Dr. Carpen

Jul 20, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News – Head of the Cardiology Department at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), Dr. Mahendra Carpen on Friday revealed that over the last five years, the hospital has seen an alarming increase of heart problems affecting the younger population in the country.

Dr. Carpen made the disclosure at the launch of ‘Strengthening Our Cardiovascular Advocacy’ (SOCA) Heart Health Project, an initiative spearheaded by a local group – STRIDE592 in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the Caribbean Heart Institute and the GPHC’s Cardiology Department.

Dr. Carpen told attendees that since his return to Guyana some 12 years ago and during his practice of cardiovascular medicine, there has been a shift in the age group for serious cardiovascular disease.

“When I first came back, the heart attack patients were in their 50s and 60s. Monday, I did a procedure on a 24-year-old, the change in age group for serious cardiovascular disease is astounding, the time period of just 12 years of practice, we have moved the needle to a much younger population. So it’s a very common routine now to see the 30 and 40-year-olds coming into hospitals with a heart attack,” he explained.

He stated that this state of affair is because people are not aware of their underlining health problems and “these are very simple things that we might take for granted (for example) what is your blood sugar, what is your blood pressure, what is your cholesterol level, your height to weight ratio, your activity level,” he said.

Dr. Carpen disclosed further that “within the last five years or so we started seeing younger and younger people coming into the hospital with heart attack and some of them have very massive heart attack, serious, some unfortunately die. But it’s an alarming observation that younger people are having heart attack.”

According to the Head of Cardiology, research shows that people in North America, Europe and in other countries have heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease among other illness but theirs occur approximately ten years later than Guyana’s population and he noted that the 10 years makes a lot of difference.

He noted that the goal to shift the prevalence of the disease from the young age group to a much older age group is because when it happens in the 30s and 40s, those are when people are really hitting their productive strides in building a family or getting into their careers.

“Those are very troubling time to have serious medical conditions,” he added.

Another concern Dr. Carpen told this publication is that “we seem to be having an increase in the number of people who are coming into hospitals without any known underlining conditions before, but when you check them out in the hospital, a number of them have diabetes, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol that they just didn’t know about it before.”

In lauding the launch of the SOCA Heart Project, Dr. Carpen expressed that this takes the activity component of cardiovascular health to a different level because not only does it make person lose weight and feel good about themselves but it has tremendous impact on all of the things that contribute to cardiovascular health.

About SOCA Heart Project

The SOCA Heart Project which was launched at the WindJammer Hotel in Kitty, Georgetown is a three-year national pilot programme with a bold yet realistic goal to mobilize 90,000 people to adopt the daily practice of moving, thereby mitigating the prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as stroke, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease by 2027 and launch a $5 million research and community engagement funds.

Founder of STRIDE592 and Co-Chair of the Programme, Onika Jervis on Friday said that cardiovascular deaths is the leading cause of deaths in the world and about 20 million people die across the globe each year, for Guyana she noted, the country is leading the Caribbean Diaspora in cardiovascular deaths.

Taking this into account, Jervis said that is why this heart project was launched in participation with the Ministry to get those numbers down. “Over the new weeks, we are going to be educating the communities about cardiovascular disease and wellness and how we can live better,” she mentioned.

Jervis said also that in rolling out this initiative, there will be a SOCA Heart Summit on September 27, 2024, and on the 29^th of September which is World Heart Day, they will host for the first time SOCA Heart 5k and 10k walk/run.

Speaking at the event, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony welcomed the programme noting that the importance of bringing awareness about the heart disease and other illnesses. He said “while we have been looking at some of the diseases, we recognize that we have been looking at the clinical aspect of it but many of these things are really lifestyle diseases, and it’s really how people living their lives.”

According to the Health Minister, having fast food in excess amount can contribute to getting sick, and so this is why an education programme is important so it teach people how to practice a healthy lifestyle.

“We don’t want more young people to get sick because one thing is to operate on them; the other thing is the cost. It’s costing a lot of money when people of a younger age are coming into the hospital with heart disease so this is something that we want to prevent. Now we want people to live long life and the only way we can do that is that we need to get people to adopt a lifestyle that allows them to live a healthier life,” the minister informed.

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• affecting, cardiovascular, disease, Dr. Mahendra Carpen, young people

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