Sandwiched between France and Germany, the small nation of Luxembourg is home to nearly 600,000 citizens. Health for the Luxembourgish people is mostly moderate, straying from the norms of Europe very little. However, common diseases in Luxembourg still take their toll on the population, and are more than attention-worthy.

A World Health Organization (WHO) report from 2004 begins by asserting that boys and girls born in Luxembourg can expect to live as long as any other child in Europe. In other words, the life-expectancy averages are very close. The report also notes that Luxembourg’s first-year-of-life mortality rate is among the lowest in Europe.

Common diseases in Luxembourg, as of the 2004 report, include noncommunicable diseases like heart disease, cancer, and cerebrovascular disease.

According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, cerebrovascular disease refers to diseases in which part of the brain is affected by irregular blood flow (“cerebro” meaning “of the large part of the brain” and “vascular” meaning “of the arteries and veins”).

Of these diseases, ischemic stroke is the most common, and occurs when a blockage prevents blood flow to the brain. Victims of this type of attack can usually expect to feel dizzy or nauseated, can feel confused, have abnormal speech, loss of vision, and even experience unusually severe headaches.

Women in particular struggle the most with cerebrovascular diseases in Luxembourg; in fact, women “die from this cause twice as often between 25 and 64 years as women in [the rest of Europe].”

Contributors to cerebrovascular disease include unpreventable circumstances, like age, as well as things that can at least be somewhat controlled, like high blood pressure and smoking. One-third of Luxembourg men and one-fourth of women smoke, one of the highest rates in Europe.

However, cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death in Luxembourg.

The American Heart Association states that the most common effect of cardiovascular disease is a heart attack. This occurs when a blood clot blocks blood flow to part of the heart. If this obstruction blocks blood flow completely, the part of the heart muscle which the artery connects to will begin to die.

Other types of cardiovascular disease include arrhythmia (irregular rhythm of the heart) and heart failure (when the heart cannot pump enough blood).

The current numbers show signs of improvement against the common diseases in Luxembourg. As of 2015, more than ten years later, health has improved in the small European nation. Life expectancy has jumped up to 80 in men and 84 in women, an increase of a few years each.

Cerebrovascular disease has also fallen off, dropping below Alzheimer’s disease, seeing a 25.4 percent decrease between 2005 and 2015. Ischemic heart disease has also seen an improvement, dropping by 22.5 percent in the same time frame.

– Stephen Praytor

Photo: Google