RIYADH: A consultant specializing in heart diseases has called for stopping what he said is prevalent chaos in nutrition habits and controlling the Saudi cuisine, which have caused more than half of the Kingdom's population to have high blood cholesterol, which increases the probability of heart and vascular diseases, and diabetes. Dr. Muhammad Radhwan Arafa, consultant cardiologist at King Saud University and deputy director of the King Fahd Center for Cardiology and Heart Surgery, said 54 percent of the Kingdom's population has high blood cholesterol levels. “This fearful percentage is the result of modern life that lacks exercise and depends on unhealthy nutrition habits,” he said. To address the issue, the Saudi Heart Association is launching a platform specializing in cholesterol disease research with the aim of raising medical-services criteria in learning more about the disease in the Kingdom, Dr. Arafa said. Researchers have conducted a study of 4,000 people suffering from the disease and the results will be published later this year, he added. Dr. Arafa said the study deals with the most important health problems facing citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in general and Saudis in particular. He attributed the increasing concern for controlling cholesterol levels to their strong relationship with and heart and vascular diseases, and diabetes.
