KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA -  It's alarming. Malaysians suffer from heart attacks seven years earlier than their Western counterparts.

The average Westerner suffers a heart attack at age 66. A Malaysian gets it at 59. Worse, there are even teenage victims.

The number of diabetic Malaysians -- at 43 per cent -- is almost double that of the West. More Malaysians are also suffering from high-blood pressure. Heart disease was once associated only with the West, but no more.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the nation's number one killer, and CVD deaths are on the rise.

Cardiologist Professor Dr Sim Kui-Hian said these figures, released during the annual National Heart Association scientific meeting recently, corresponded to "our lifestyle".
The findings were derived from one of the National Cardiovascular Disease Database registries, which collated data on more than 6,500 heart patients from 13 hospitals nationwide. The registry's full report, the first of its kind, will be released soon.

The study shows that younger patients are beginning to have ST segment elevation myocardial infarction, the kind of heart attack where there is 100 per cent blockage and which demands immediate medical action.

Cholesterol level is higher among younger patients, but heart function is poorer among the elderly and diabetic patients.

Although heart attacks often hit Malaysians in their 50s, the groundwork -- clogging of the arteries -- has been laid out 30 years earlier.

Dr Sim, the National Heart Association chairman, said not even the healthiest of persons was exempt from the build-up of cholesterol in the bloodstream.

Staying in top form till the prime years is still the best way to keep the build-up minimal and to beat a premature attack.

"The public must realise that a heart attack can occur in every single person because the artery clogs up just the way the water pipes at our homes do.

"If you ask anyone, they would tell you that their 50-year-old pipe is surely rusty. Everyone understands this water pipe theory, but why do some people think that it's not the same with their arteries?"

Dr Sim, who heads the department of cardiology and clinical research centre at Sarawak General Hospital, also shot down the common misconception that those with zero risk factors were generally "safe".

"Risk factors -- being a male, smoker, diabetic, and suffering from high-cholesterol and high blood pressure -- accelerate one's process of getting a cardiovascular disease.

"But, if you don't have these, it just means that you're not in the high-risk group. But, you're not risk-free.

"Everyone will get a heart disease someday. It's a matter of time. All you can do is delay it."

Malaysians should know their risks early, as stressed by the theme of this year's World Heart Day, because there are reasons to believe that heart patients are getting younger by the year.

Dr Shaiful Azmi Yahaya of the National Heart Institute says IJN's youngest patient currently is his patient, a 28-year-old male who suffered a major heart attack when three of his heart vessels became blocked. The consultant cardiologist said the institute has even had teenagers as patients.

Since its inception in 1992, IJN has carried out about 95,000 heart treatment procedures. Last year, it did about 8,500 procedures. As of August this year, 6,000 had been done.

Dr Sim said the soaring number of CVD cases, despite annual awareness campaigns, showed that Malaysians lacked responsibility towards their health.

"This is a treatable disease. More importantly, it can be prevented."

The National Heart Association hopes to appoint a few heart patients as next year's World Heart Day ambassadors, who will relate their experiences to the public.

Another plan is to have schoolchildren work on a project to discover what CVD is all about. Hands-on "missions" such as finding out their parents' blood pressure and cholesterol levels would be part of this programme.

There are plans to get more hospitals to join in the registry so that data can be collected to assist in calculating one's risk in contracting CVD.

"If you're a diabetic in the United States, you know your chances of getting a heart attack in 10 years. In Malaysia, you don't. We need this data so that we, too, can know," said Dr Sim.