Fewer People in EU Dying of Heart Diseases: Study

According to a new study, deaths due to heart diseases in the European Union have declined since 1980s.

Countries such as Denmark, Malta, The Netherlands, Sweden and the U.K. recorded the largest drop in number of both men and women dying from heart diseases, researchers found.

 Researchers found that the number of people dying from heart diseases had come down despite the rise in obesity and diabetes during the past few decades. One major factor contributing to the decreased rate is the reduction of smoking in young people. However, in absolute numbers, heart disease remains the number one killer in EU.

Previous research had shown that smoking increases risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke by five-folds in people under 50 years of age. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smokers are two to four times more likely to develop a coronary heart disease than non-smokers. Cigarette smoking narrows blood vessels, reducing blood circulation.

The present study found significant variation in the number of people dying from Coronary heart diseases in the EU. For the study researchers looked at a number of deaths from CHD in both men and women between 1980 and 2009 among different age groups.

 "Overall, across the EU, rates of death from coronary heart disease have continued to fall in most age groups in most countries. There are some exceptions, however, and there remain wide disparities across Europe in both the absolute rates of death from heart disease and the rates of improvement," said Melanie Nichols, a Research Associate from the British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group at the University of Oxford (UK), according to a news release.

The study is published in the European Heart Journal.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in men and women in the U.S. as well, with about 600,000 people dying of heart related complications every year, CDC says.