Heart risk factors high in young Indian adults - study
(April 25, 2011) More and more, young urban adults in India are developing obesity,
high blood pressure and diabetes, suggesting that rising rates of cardiovascular disease
could appear in the future, an Indian study said. Among 1,100 young adults from New
Delhi, all three conditions became steadily more common over the 7 years of the study,
according to findings published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
"Given the rapid socioeconomic and demographic transitions in India, I was not surprised
at the high incidence rate," said Dorairaj Prabhakaran, a cardiologist at the Centre
for Chronic Disease Control in New Delhi, who worked on the study. Though Western-style
diets are often blamed for feeding obesity and its associated health problems, such
eating habits aren't that common in India. Prabhakaran said that many popular Indian
foods are unhealthy, as they are rich in sugar and saturated fat. Rates of high
blood pressure rose from 11 percent to 34 percent among men, and from 5 to 15 percent
among women at the end of the seven-year period study. Diabetes rose from 5 to 12
percent among men, and from 3.5 percent to 7 percent among women. India, with its
population of 1 billion-plus, was estimated to account for 60 percent of the world's
heart disease cases in 2010.