TEHRAN -– Secretary of the 11th National Congress on Cardiovascular Update said here on Thursday that Iranians smoke about 60 billion cigarettes each year, lamenting the increasing rate of smoking among the Iranian youth and women.

Speaking at the congress, Mohammad-Reza Mohammad-Hassani said that a total of 80% of heart and vascular diseases can be preventable by planning and informing the society of the major risk factors for the spread of diseases.
Describing obesity and tobacco use as the major causes of heart diseases, the secretary said that 44% of Iran’s over 50s are considered overweight.
“There was a 29% increase in the country’s obesity rate,” Mohammad-Hassani averred.
Calling heart and coronary diseases the most common causes of death among the Iranians Mohammad-Hassani said, “25% of the country’s 70-million population has high blood pressure.”
He blamed poor diet, physical inactivity, and diabetes for the high incidence of the disease in the country.
MP Hossein Hassani also delivered a speech to the congress and said that tobacco claimed between 150 and 180 lives a day in the Islamic Republic.
“Physical inactivity is responsible for 22% of heart attacks, and smoking is responsible for 21% heart and vascular diseases,” Hassani told the conference, blaming high blood pressure for 13% of heart diseases.
Advances in diagnostic techniques and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, current problems of atherosclerosis, the role of platelets, and inflammatory biomarkers in its accelerated course were among the issues discussed at the four-day event.
The latest achievements in coronary artery diseases, arrhythmias, echocardiography, cardiovascular surgery, congenital heart diseases, as well as stem cell research were also presented at congress organized by the Iranian Society of Atherosclerosis