Different trends in cardiovascular mortality and food consumption in Austria and in former Czechoslovakia

The life expectancy of the male and female population immediately after World War II was similar in the former Czechoslovakia and in Austria. However, the situation has changed radically over the past 30 years. In 1991 the life expectancy in Czechoslovakia was 4.9 years less for males and 3.6 years less for females than in Austria due to the two-fold higher premature mortality from cardiovascular diseases and some further causes. The reasons for the 200% difference in cardiovascular mortality between Austria and Czechoslovakia are unknown. The prevalence of traditional risk factors (i.e. smoking, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia) was only moderately different in both countries. On the other hand, very different trends in food consumption were observed: in Austria the consumption of milk and milk products, vegetable oils, fruits, some kinds of vegetables and nuts was significantly higher, whereas the consumption of butter, sugar, eggs, cereals and concentrated spirits was lower. The consumption of pork, beef, poultry and fish was very similar in the two countries. The intake of antioxidant vitamins and probably also of folic acid, which affects the level of homocysteine, was lower in Czechoslovakia. The psychosocial load in totalitarian Czechoslovakia was undoubtedly higher. Epidemiological research of Central European populations living on both sides of the former Iron Curtain might bring new information on the role of less known non-traditional risk factors (i.e., psychosocial stress, nutritional factors such as chronic deficiency of antioxidant vitamins and a low intake of folic acid) in the etiology of cardiovascular diseases.