'CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGES INCREASE...

JEDDAH: Discourage first cousin marriages to check the likely increase of genetic diseases, a British expert said.

“The rate of consanguineous marriages is quite high in this part of the world and has to go down if the incidence of genetic diseases including heart problems has to come down,” Dr. John Deanfield, adviser on cardiovascular diseases at Britain's Middlesex Hospital, told Arab News on the sidelines of a symposium on cardiovascular treatments this week. Deanfield gave lectures at various sessions here attended by consultants and physicians in the field of cardiovascular treatment from around the Kingdom. The symposium gave them an opportunity to learn about many field developments and techniques and enabled them to share their experiences with the visiting professor.

He explained that the severity of cardiovascular diseases is determined by risk factors accumulating in the patient’s body as per the latest scientific research named “InterHeart” indicating that 90 percent of the patients in 52 countries share the same nine risk factors. Some of these factors are high blood pressure (BP) and high cholesterol levels as they are considered to be the most dominant among patients, in addition to smoking and diabetes that are considered to be common among patients.

The accumulation of these factors in the patient's body causes serious disruption to the body's activities leading to damage to the wall of the blood vessels, which in turn causes death either by cardiac infarctions or strokes, he added. “In addition, the latest clinical studies state that most cases related to high blood pressure and cholesterol levels are linked to dysfunction in the biological activities of blood vessels,” he said. Consanguineous marriages can contribute to the increase in such diseases, he added.

Dr. Deanfield explained that during the past decade and through various clinical studies considered to be milestones in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, many fruitful results were achieved in finding medical breakthroughs in lowering cholesterol and BP levels, specifically in clinical studies on drugs such as Asttatin. These studies showed a notable improvement in reducing strokes and deaths caused by cardiac infarction.

Education will have to be intensified to make the general public know about the various risk factors. Also physical exercise should form part of the school curriculum, he said. “Eat less and exercise more” should be the key for all, especially for those who are diabetic and obese that cause heart disease.

K.S. Ramkumar - Arab News