RxPG News : Asian Health

South Asians more prone to heart attacks than whites

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:13:11 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The incidence of coronary heart disease - is higher among the South Asian communities of Britain than the white population, a new research by the British Heart Foundation and Oxford University has revealed.

The prevalence of CHD is highest in Indian - and Pakistani - men, it says.

The details of the new research were released Monday exclusively to the BBC Asian Network which broadcast a half hour programme on the subject the same evening.

Cardio-vascular diseases cause more than a third of all deaths in England and Wales in a year. A quarter of these deaths are of the South Asian communities, the research says.

Though binge drinking is low in the South Asian communities, the prevalence of smoking is quite high. Twenty per cent of all Indians men here smoke. So do 40 per cent of Bangladeshi men. It ranges from two per cent among Bangladeshi women to 26 per cent among the Irish.

The results of the research are published by the Heart Foundation under the title, 'Stroke Statistics; European Cardiovascular Disease Statistic: Regional and Social Differences in Coronary Heart Disease; Diet, Physical Activity and Obesity'.

The study could not find any satisfactory reasons for the CHD affecting South Asian more even though their Body Mass Index - was found to be much lower than the local white population, while the ethnic groups fared better than the white population in terms of physical activity, lower cholesterol, balanced diet and controlled blood pressure.

According to the researchers, since the above-mentioned normal risk factors for CHD did not apply much to the South Asians, the reasons for high prevalence of the disease among them could be due to 'differences in genetic make-up and differences in cultural and social practices between ethnic groups that might influence their risk of developing cardiovascular disease'.

On the issue of timely treatment of South Asians with CHD, the study says that 'at present, very few people from ethnic minority groups attend cardiac rehabilitation programmes'.

The study finds the reason for this inequality in treatment and rehabilitation: 'Until recently, regular coding of ethnic data in the National Health Service - was either inconsistent or not practiced.' Since 2001 it has been a requirement to ethnically code all admissions to NHS hospitals and thus by 2007-08 only 15 per cent of ethnic admissions were found not coded. This means the NHS does not have records of many South Asian CHD patients for follow-up treatment.

The study also finds that admissions of South Asian CHD patients to NHS hospitals for surgical treatment are lower than that of white patients. Even in case of revascularization and admission to heart rehabilitation programmes, the study shows the admissions of the ethnic groups is less than that of the white population.

The medical director of the British Heart Foundation, Prof. Peter Weissberg says that the publication of this new research 'is timely as the government and political parties in England consider the next steps for tackling health inequalities in the coming decade'.

The research was conducted by researchers Prof. Peter Scarborough, Asha Kaur, Kate Smolina and Mike Rayner of the department of public health, Oxford University and Prachi Bhatnagar, and Kremlin Wickramasinghe of the Foundation's Health Promotion Research Group.

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South Asians risk heart attack at younger ages

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:30:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Jan 18 - South Asian people experience heart attacks at a younger age because of greater levels of risk factors such as smoking and diabetes earlier in life, according to a study by an Indian doctor.

The South Asian countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal account for about a quarter of the world's population and contribute the highest proportion of cardiovascular diseases compared with any other region globally.

Deaths related to cardiovascular disease occur five to 10 years earlier in South Asian countries than in Western countries, according to an article in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, a highly cited weekly medical journal.

This has raised the possibility that South Asians exhibit a special susceptibility for acute myocardial infarction - that is not explained by traditional risk factors.

Despite documenting the higher rates of earlier coronary heart disease - in South Asians, few studies have been able to shed light on its reasons.

Prashant Joshi, M.D., of the Government Medical College, Nagpur, India, and colleagues attempted to determine the reasons for the higher rates of CHD in native South Asians compared with individuals from other parts of the world. The study included 1,732 heart attack patients and 2,204 controls from 15 medical centres in five South Asian countries and 10,728 heart attack cases and 12,431 controls from other countries.

The researchers found that the average age for first heart attack was lower in South Asian countries - than in other countries -.

The prevalence of protective risk factors - were markedly lower in South Asian study participants compared with those from other countries.

Some harmful factors were more common in native South Asians than in individuals from other countries: history of diabetes, current and former smoking, history of hypertension, psychosocial factors such as depression and stress at work or home, and elevated ApoB/ApoA-I ratio -. When stratified by age, South Asians had more risk factors at ages younger than 60 years.

'The younger age of first AMI among the South Asian cases in our study appears to be largely explained by the higher prevalence of risk factors in native South Asians,' the authors write. 'These data suggest that lifestyle changes implemented early in life have the potential to substantially reduce the risk of AMI in South Asians.'

Good English gives better mental health to Asian Americans

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:22:09 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Dec 1 - Indian and other Asian men with good or excellent English skills are less likely to have mental health problems than those with poorer English proficiency, according to a new study of immigrants to the US.

Asian Americans in general have lower rates of psychiatric disorders than American-born Asians and other native-born Americans with English-language proficiency the main variable among men and birthplace the key factor for women.

Asian-American immigrant women were far less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, substance abuse or psychiatric disorder in their lifetime than were US-born women, according to this first national epidemiological survey of the community.

'Compared to all Americans, Asian Americans had lower lifetime rates of any disorder,' said David Takeuchi, a sociologist and University of Washington social work professor and lead author of the study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

'Roughly 48 percent of Americans will have some kind of a lifetime disorder. In our study, less than one in four Asian-American immigrants will have a disorder. However, that won't necessarily be the case for their children and grandchildren. If trends continue, rates for them will go up and that suggests that more investment is needed for prevention programmes.'

The researchers used a questionnaire designed by the World Health Organisation to find out about incidents in the past year and lifetime of depression, anxiety, phobias, post traumatic stress disorder, substance and alcohol abuse and eating disorders.

The questionnaire was available in six languages, although nearly three-quarters of the interviews were conducted in English.

The study also found that there were no significant differences among the main immigrant groups, the Chinese, Filipinos and Vietnamese.

Asian immigrants who came as elementary school-age children have an easier time learning English than older children, but are more at risk to develop a substance abuse problem.

American-born women are twice as likely to have a depressive disorder than Asian-born women.

Among men, those born elsewhere are less likely to have a substance abuse problem than Asian-American men born in the United States.

The study also raised a number of questions that Takeuchi said the researchers want to look at in the future. He said they would like to compare the circumstances of immigrants who voluntarily migrate and those who are refugees.

'Someone who is a voluntary immigrant doesn't typically suffer the severe trauma that a refugee who is fleeing persecution or war does.' And because social relationships can enhance or deter social mobility, the researchers also want to examine how discrimination is associated with mental health among Asian Americans.

Other papers in the journal look at the mental health of Latino and Black Caribbean immigrants to the United States. In general, all of the papers suggest that immigrants have lower rates of mental disorders than native-born Americans.

Data from the Asian-American paper was drawn from the larger National Latino and Asian American Study.

For this paper, the researchers interviewed nearly 2,100 native-born or immigrant Asian Americans who were 18 or older. Participants included 600 Chinese, 520 Vietnamese, 508 Filipinos and 467 other Asians including Japanese, Koreans and Asian Indians.