Ask your South Asian patients about their diet. Just as rampant is the denial of this scourge among elders in our communities. Be aware – diabetes and insulin resistance are silent killers in the Indian subcontinent.Inform them of the science behind a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic (i.e., weightlifting) exercise as a means of preventing insulin resistance. Encourage them to move! South Asians are not very physically active.Have a low threshold to inform your patients of their high risk for developing insulin resistance and diabetes. ![]() Young South Asian adults often have HbA1c levels just north of 5 percent but these are not flagged as abnormal and usually their diets are suboptimal. Don't ignore HbA1c levels within normal range. ![]() Screen all young patients of South Asian origin for diabetes.Sandeep's Tips to Help Your South Asian Patients ![]() 1,2Īt the turn of the millennium, it was reported that coronary heart disease mortality was expected to increase approximately 29 percent in women and 48 percent in men in developed countries between 19 the corresponding estimated increases in developing countries were 120 percent in women and 137 percent in men. Although mortality secondary to ASCVD has been declining in the Western world, ischemic heart disease remains the number one cause of death in adults from both low- and middle-income countries. Thus, the high incidence of ASCVD in this ethnic group presents a major public health crisis. South Asians represent approximately 25 percent of the world's population – yet they account for 60 percent of the world's heart disease patients. Moreover, they develop heart disease up to a decade earlier (often before the fifth decade of life). People of South Asian descent, including those from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives, have a higher risk of ASCVD – fourfold higher than the general population. As a cardiologist, shouldn't I have seen this coming? Unfortunately, his story is not an isolated one. As his friend, an interventional cardiologist and a fellow South Asian, when he shared the tragic news I was at a loss for what to say. He exercised regularly and was the poster child of cardiac health in his South Asian community in South Carolina.Īditya Suresh is a close friend of mine. ![]() He had lost weight and his BMI was only 24 kg/m2, down from 29 kg/m2. He saw his primary care doctor regularly and was recently taken off his diabetes medications as his HbA1c had fallen below 6.0 percent, indicating his lifestyle and dietary changes were working. The cause of death was deemed to be cardiac arrest as a result of aggressive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).īy all accounts, Aditya's father was a healthy man. He remembers vividly speaking with his mom who struggled to communicate that she had just learned that his father, a young Indian man in his late 50s, had been found dead in a hotel bathroom while on a business trip. As he was getting ready to go to work he received the call that would forever change his life. Februwas shaping up to be just like any other day in the life of Aditya Suresh, a software engineer at Google's campus in Seattle.
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