Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Australia. Cardiovascular disease kills one Australian every 11 minutes.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a common and serious disease in Australia. Many forms of heart disease can be prevented or treated with a healthy lifestyle.
The term heart disease is often used interchangeably with cardiovascular disease and is a broad term used to describe the conditions that affect your heart and includes diseases of the blood vessels.
CVD costs more lives than any other disease. It affects one in six Australians (more than 3.4 million Australians), and prevents 1.4 million people from living a full life because of disability caused by the disease.
It also imposes a burden of disease, measured in terms of disability and premature death, second only to cancer. In 2008 alone nearly 50,000 deaths were attributed to CVD in Australia.
AstraZeneca plays a major role in the development of new drug treatments for cardiovascular disease with the aim of offering people longer and healthier lives.
AstraZeneca Australia provides one of the broadest range of medicines in this area and continues to search for new and innovative approaches to treat cardiovascular disease.
Our current and ongoing research aims to develop new and innovative medicines in this area.
It is estimated that there is 7.68 million Australians who are over the age of 25 years and have elevated cholesterol levels. For a closer look at cholesterol, please click here.
Elevated blood pressure, or hypertension, affects more than 1 in 4 adult Australians every year, with half remaining untreated. For more information on high blood pressure click here.
Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death and one of the leading causes of ill health in Australia. Within CVD, acute coronary syndromes (ACS) causes approximately 90 000 hospitalisations per year and this figure is expected to grow. For further information about acute coronary syndromes please click here.
Diabetes is a common condition that is associated with many complications. Diabetes is on the rise worldwide and in Australia. It has been estimated that nearly one million Australians have diabetes, with almost half unaware they have the condition. For more information on diabetes click here.