Corona and Misery: Sixth Epidemiologic Transition by COVID-19 and Its Consequent Cardiovascular Complications

A theory of the epidemiology of population change was first raised by abdel r. omran in 1971 (1-3) and it had originated from the demographic transition model (4,5). before that, it was suggested other disciplines like fertility, mortality, and migration are influencing factors for population change (6). but progression in science particularly health and deep recognition of diseases demonstrated that epidemiology is remarkably influenced by distribution of disease and death also their outcomes in population groups (1,7,8). for many years, primary shifts in disease patterns and mortality were categorized in three groups of: 1) the age of pestilence and famine, 2) the age of receding pandemics and, 3) the age of degenerative and man-made diseases (1,7,9). the third epidemiologic transition was transition from mortality due to chronic, noncommunicable diseases in comparison to mortality from malnutrition and infectious diseases (10). therefore, “third stage” of transition has great importance in population aging for example octogenarians (11). fourth stage of epidemiologic transition was proposed by olshansky and ault (2), as the age of delayed degenerative diseases. mortality from infectious diseases declined and deaths from degenerative diseases prevailed (11,12). inactivity and obesity was the fifth stage of epidemiologic transition (13). in the last 3 decades, marked increase in overweight and obesity as well as physical inactivity was widespread (14).