Differences and similarities in cardiovascular risk between Asian and Caucasian populations

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide. Once thought to be a Western disease, CVD has emerged as a public health threat for many low- and middle-income countries. Successful decline of the burden of CVD in high income countries point towards an opportunity for developing countries to avert the rising epidemic of CVD. Given limited resources to allocate to CVD, developing countries like China will want to focus on the most cost-effective and influential prevention and treatment strategies. A first step to arrive at cost-effective interventions is to assess and understand the current cardiovascular risk profiles in these countries and to explore regional differences. Cardiovascular risk factors tend to cluster within individuals in many populations. With increasing numbers of risk factors, the risk for CVD and all-cause mortality increases substantially. However, little evidence is available on the clustering of risk factors and the impact of specific combinations of risk factors on the risk of cardiovascular events between different ethnic groups or regions. In this thesis, we explored the similarities and differences in cardiovascular risk between Asians and Caucasians, with emphasis on clustering of cardiovascular risk factors. Our findings indicate that risk factors have similar effects on CVD between Asian and Caucasian populations. Differences in the cardiovascular risk are likely driven by differences in the distributions of risk factors between regions. Prevention and treatment strategies should be developed according to local needs and priorities and adapted to social, cultural and economic environments before being implemented.