Coronary Artery Disease in Young: Faulty Life Style or Heredofamilial or Both

Objective: To see the frequency of different risk factors for coronary artery disease in our young population (i.e. age ≤ 40 years). Design: A Descriptive study. Place And Duration Of Study: Department of cardiac catheterization, Punjab institute of cardiology, Lahore. From January to December 2004. Sample Size: 459 young patients with documented coronary artery disease were included in this study. Methods and results: The present study comprised of 459 young patients (≤ 40 years) who presented with symptoms suggestive of ischemic heart disease. All patients were evaluated for conventional risk factors for coronary artery disease (like Diabetes mellitus, hypertension, smoking, dyslipidemia, obesity, waist hip ratio (WHR) and by doing coronary angiography. Out of these 459 patients, there were 376 (81.9%) males and 83 (18.1%) females, mostly belonging to 36 + 4 years age group. 63.4% were chronic smokers and all of them were males. 18.8% subjects gave history of premature coronary artery disease in first degree relatives. Some of them had distinct evidence of psychosocial stress preceding a coronary artery disease episode. Hypertension was detected in 51.4% cases. Obesity was observed in 35% cases. Dyslipidemia was seen in 41.66% cases. 7.14% cases were diabetic. Most ominous combination was smoking, obesity, dyslipidemia and hypertension. Conclusion Both heredofamilial as well as faulty life style contribute to the development of coronary artery disease in young people.