two-year incidence of acute fatal and non-fatal coronary accident and stroke in the over-35 population in central iran

abstract introduction: cardiovascular diseases and stroke constitute an important cause of death in most developed and undeveloped countries. identification of the principal risk factors of coronary accidents and stroke and understanding of the relative risk posed by each of these risk factors are crucial to control and reduction of risk factors. methods: 6542 individuals aged over 35 years from the cities of isfahan, arak and najafabad were studied and followed for two years. the individuals were chosen from among the population of 12800 people, selected in several stages to participate in isfahan healthy heart program (ihhp). pregnant women, mentally retarded individuals, and those with hemorrhagic diseases were excluded from the study. risk factors were extracted based on definition using spss 11 software, and the degree of risk posed by each risk factor was determined. results: the incidence of acute coronary accidents was studied in 3970 (60.7%) healthy individuals participating in ihhp, who were followed over a period of two years. 60 deaths (1.5% of the population) occurred during the two years, 1% of which were caused by myocardial infarction (mi). there were 115 instances of fatal and non-fatal cardiac accidents (2.9% of the population). strokes were seen in half of the cases. a positive history of smoking was accompanied by reduced survival of subjects in this study. the incidence of non-fatal cardiac accidents also increased with diastolic hypertension and triglyceride level. in this study, the greatest risk of cardiac accidents was associated with hypertension, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and positive history of smoking. discussion: in this study, the two-year incidence of cardiac accidents was higher than that of ewopean countris. the relative risk of risk factors such as diabetes, positive history of smoking, and hypertension was also notably higher than that of similar studies. in light of the higher risk of cardiac accidents compared with similar studies, preparing a risk chart based on geographical and cultural features for evaluation of the risk of cardiac accidents seems imperative.   key words: risk chart, fatal cardiac accidents, non-fatal cardiac accidents, stroke, cardiovascular risk factors, iran