ORIGINAL ARTICLES

The prevalence of cardiovascular disease is continuously rising throughout Africa.1-5 The epidemiological transition impelling the developing world towards more non-communicable diseases, and especially cardiovascular disease, has been attributed to westernisation, reduced physical activity, obesity and the growing prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors.1 Although the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases is at present less than in the developed world, an enormous rise in the near future, and also that most of the increase will come from developing nations (especially Africa), has been predicted.6 The African INTERHEART Study,7 which looked at the contribution of conventional risk factors among subjects with developed coronary heart disease (CHD), found that 90 % of these subjects had the conventional risk factors of smoking, diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension, abdominal obesity and dyslipidaemia. This finding further highlights a similar pathway in the evolution o