Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes

Book excerpt: In people with South Asian ancestry, the cardiovascular diseases of stroke and coronary heart disease (CVD) are epidemic, and type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) is pandemic. As South Asians comprise about 25% of the world's population their high susceptibility is of global public health and clinical importance. Eluding researchers across the globe, this phenomenon continues to be a subject of intensive enquiry. As Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, points out, the epidemics of chronic diseases, which he describes as a public health emergency in slow motion, can be restrained but not stopped. With a focus on the global South Asian population, Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes: Explaining the Phenomenon in South Asians Worldwide is a critical review of current literature investigating the increase in cases of CVD and DM2, and the data underpinning them. The book argues that the high risk of CVD and DM2 in urbanised South Asians is not inevitable, genetic, or programmed in a fixed way. Rather, exposure to risk factors in childhood, adolescence, and most particularly in adulthood, is the key to unravelling its cause. Drawing on current scientific literature and discussions with 22 international scholars, the book presents a unique synthesis of theory, research, and public health practice under one cover - from tissue research to human intervention trials. It also addresses the challenge many health professionals face in developing countries: to produce focused, low cost and effective actions for combating CVD and DM2. The lessons contained within will have ramifications in healthcare across the globe Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes: Explaining the Phenomenon in South Asians Worldwide is ideal for scholars, researchers and health practitioners working towards understanding and preventing the epidemics of these modern chronic diseases across the world.