Risk factors for acute myocardial infarction in a southern Chinese population

Although the mortality rate from coronary artery disease in Hong Kong is only one-fourth of that of northern Europe and the United States, the disease has been and remains the second major cause of death (after all cancers combined). Beginning in 1987, we have conducted a case-control study of acute myocardial infarction in four Hong Kong hospitals. This study, one of the biggest case-control studies conducted in the Chinese population of both men and women, confirms the importance of several risk factors--cigarette smoking, history of hypertension, history of diabetes, body fatness, and lack of physical activity--previously described in data collected in western populations. In addition, more adverse childhood experience was also found to be an important risk factor of acute myocardial infarction. Further research in appropriate intervention measures in education in the prevention and cessation of smoking, the control of blood pressure, diabetes, and overweight, and adequate exercise could significantly help reduce the risk of acute myocardial infarction in the Hong Kong Chinese population.