Skip to main content
PMC home page
Bulletin of the World Health Organization logoLink to Bulletin of the World Health Organization
. 1964;31(3):321–335.

Myocardial disease in a rural population in Jamaica*

J Fodor, W E Miall, K L Standard, Z Fejfar, K L Stuart
PMCID: PMC2555121  PMID: 14267741

Abstract

An epidemiological study of the prevalence of heart disease in a representative rural population in Jamaica was carried out in 1962. Six hundred adults aged 35-64 years were selected at random from an agricultural population of which a census had been taken previously, and this report describes the clinical and electrocardiographic findings in 548 of these subjects.

It is clear from the results of this survey that symptoms and physical signs of heart disease are common in this population; electrocardiographic evidence of myocardial damage—frequently interpreted as due to myocardial ischaemia—has also an unexpectedly high prevalence for an ethnic group in which a number of careful pathological studies have shown myocardial infarction and occlusive coronary artery disease to be comparatively rare.

Much of the heart disease found was wholly unexplained, and it is thought that many of these subjects may have a type of cardiomyopathy of unknown etiology. A number of reports from the tropics and subtropics have drawn attention to this problem, but this is, so far as is known, the first investigation of its epidemiology.

Full text

PDF
321

Images in this article

328p328-a
on p.328

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. BLACHE J. O., HANDLER F. P. Coronary artery disease; a comparison of the rates and patterns of development of coronary arteriosclerosis in the Negro and white races with its relation to clinical coronary artery disease. Arch Pathol (Chic) 1950 Aug;50(2):189–198. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. BLACKBURN H., KEYS A., SIMONSON E., RAUTAHARJU P., PUNSAR S. The electrocardiogram in population studies. A classification system. Circulation. 1960 Jun;21:1160–1175. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.21.6.1160. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. BRONTE-STEWART B., KEYS A., BROCK J. F. Serum-cholesterol, diet, and coronary heart-disease; an inter-racial survey in the Cape Peninsula. Lancet. 1955 Nov 26;269(6900):1103–1108. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(55)92947-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. CRAWFORD M. A. Excretion of 5-hydroxyindolylacetic acid in East Africans. Lancet. 1962 Feb 17;1(7225):352–353. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(62)91303-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. DAWBER T. R., MOORE F. E., MANN G. V. Coronary heart disease in the Framingham study. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1957 Apr;47(4 Pt 2):4–24. doi: 10.2105/ajph.47.4_pt_2.4. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. FISTEIN B., SUTTON R. N. Chagas' disease in the West Indies. Lancet. 1963 Feb 9;1(7276):330–331. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(63)92279-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. FOWLER N. O., GUERON M., ROWLANDS D. T., Jr Primary myocardial disease. Circulation. 1961 Apr;23:498–508. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.23.4.498. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. GOBLE A. J., HAY D. R., SANDLER M. 5-Hydroxytryptamine metabolism in acquired heart-disease associated with argentaffin carcinoma. Lancet. 1955 Nov 12;269(6898):1016–1017. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(55)93436-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. GREENE C. R., KELLY J. J., Jr Electrocardiogram of the healthy adult Negro. Circulation. 1959 Nov;20:906–909. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.20.5.906. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. GROOM D., McKEE E. E., WEBB C., GRANT F. W., PEAN V., HUDICOURT E., DALLEMAND J. Coronary and aortic atherosclerosis in the Negroes of Haiti and the United States. Ann Intern Med. 1959 Aug;51:270–289. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-51-2-270. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Gore I., Robertson W. B., Hirst A. E., Hadley G. G., Koseki Y. Geographic Differences in the Severity of Aortic and Coronary Atherosclerosis: The United States, Jamaica, W. I., South India, and Japan. Am J Pathol. 1960 May;36(5):559–574. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. HIGGINS I. T., COCHRANE A. L., THOMAS A. J. EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF CORONARY DISEASE. Br J Prev Soc Med. 1963 Oct;17:153–165. doi: 10.1136/jech.17.4.153. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. LAURIE W., WOODS J. D., ROACH G. Coronary heart disease in the South African Bantu. Am J Cardiol. 1960 Jan;5:48–59. doi: 10.1016/0002-9149(60)90008-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. MEERSON F. Z. Compensatory hyperfunction of the heart and cardiac insufficiency. Circ Res. 1962 Mar;10:250–258. doi: 10.1161/01.res.10.3.250. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. MILLER D. C., SPENCER S. S., WHITE P. D. Survey of cardiovascular disease among Africans in the vicinity of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in 1960. Am J Cardiol. 1962 Sep;10:432–446. doi: 10.1016/0002-9149(62)90332-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. POWELL S. J. Unexplained electrocardiograms in the African. Br Heart J. 1959 Apr;21(2):263–268. doi: 10.1136/hrt.21.2.263. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. PYKE D. A. Some medical problems of immigration into Britain. Electrocardiographic changes in West Indians. Proc R Soc Med. 1963 Jul;56:567–569. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. REEF H., ISAACSON C. Atherosclejosis in the Bantu. The distribution of atheromatous lesions in Africans over 50 years of age. Circulation. 1962 Jan;25:66–72. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.25.1.66. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. ROBERTSON W. B. Atherosclerosis and ischaemic heart-disease; observations in Jamaica. Lancet. 1959 Feb 28;1(7070):444–446. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(59)92261-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. ROSE G. A. The diagnosis of ischaemic heart pain and intermittent claudication in field surveys. Bull World Health Organ. 1962;27:645–658. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. SCHRIRE V. The comparative racial prevalence of ischemic heart disease in Cape Town. Am J Cardiol. 1961 Aug;8:173–177. doi: 10.1016/0002-9149(61)90202-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. SCOTT R. F., DAOUD A. S., FLORENTIN R. A., DAVIES J. N., COLES R. M. Comparison of the amount of coronary arteriosclerosis in autopsied East Africans and New Yorkers. Am J Cardiol. 1961 Aug;8:165–172. doi: 10.1016/0002-9149(61)90201-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. SMYTHE P. M., SWANEPOEL A., CAMPBELL J. A. The heart in kwashiorkor. Br Med J. 1962 Jan 13;1(5271):67–73. doi: 10.1136/bmj.1.5271.67. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. STUART K. L., HAYES J. A. A cardiac disorder of unknown aetiology in Jamaica. Q J Med. 1963 Apr;32:99–114. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. STUART K. L., MIALL W. E., TULLOCH J. A., CHRISTIAN D. E. Dilatation and unfolding of the aorta in a Jamaican population. Br Heart J. 1962 Jul;24:455–463. doi: 10.1136/hrt.24.4.455. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. THOMAS W. A., BLACHE J. O., LEE K. T. Race and the incidence of acute myocardial infarction; incidence of acute myocardial infarction among autopsies of 9064 white and 8003 Negro patients, with special reference to age, sex, and diabetes mellitus. AMA Arch Intern Med. 1957 Sep;100(3):423–429. doi: 10.1001/archinte.1957.00260090079010. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. UDENFRIEND S., LOVENBERG W., SJOERDSMA A. Physiologically active amines in common fruits and vegetables. Arch Biochem Biophys. 1959 Dec;85:487–490. doi: 10.1016/0003-9861(59)90516-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  28. Waalkes T. P., Sjoerdsma A., Creveling C. R., Weissbach H., Udenfriend S. Serotonin, Norepinephrine, and Related Compounds in Bananas. Science. 1958 Mar 21;127(3299):648–650. doi: 10.1126/science.127.3299.648. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Bulletin of the World Health Organization are provided here courtesy of World Health Organization

RESOURCES