From Medscape
PALO ALTO, CA — A new study identified distinct differences in heart-disease and stroke mortality in the six largest Asian ethnicities—Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese—compared with non-Hispanic whites.
Cerebrovascular Neurol Disease (Photo by: BSIP/UIG via Getty Images)
The research was published in the December 16, 2014 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, with first author Dr Powell O Jose (Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, CA).
Even though non-Hispanic white men and women had the highest overall mortality rates from CVD and stroke, Asian Indians and Filipinos had higher ischemic heart disease mortality than whites. Moreover, people from every Asian American subgroup were more likely to die from hypertensive heart disease and cerebrovascular disease, especially hemorrhagic stroke, compared with white men and women.
“American cardiologists need to know that Asian Americans are not a homogenous group, and each Asian subgroup has their own set of genetic, social, and cultural backgrounds, which alter disease risks,” senior author Dr Latha P Palaniappan (Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute) told heartwire . “Our findings reveal that Asian Indians and Filipino men, especially, die [from CVD] at younger ages than other Asian subgroups and whites, so early targeted and preventive medicine is important for these populations,” she stressed.
These heterogeneous CVD mortality patterns “[call] attention to the need for more research to help direct more specific treatment and prevention efforts, in particular with hypertension and stroke, to reduce health disparities for this growing population,” Jose and colleagues conclude.
“Asians” Too Broad a Category
More than 18 million Americans are of Asian origin and represent the fastest-growing broadly defined racial/ethnic group in the US. Meanwhile, heart disease and stroke are the country’s leading causes of death. However, the current understanding of mortality from heart disease and stroke among Asian Americans is distorted, because Asians were underrepresented in previous national epidemiologic studies and diverse ethnicities were lumped together as “Asian,” according to the researchers.
In 2003, explicit information about Asian subgroups began to be collected in national death records. Jose and colleagues analyzed mortality data from 34 states, from 2003 to 2010, and identified more than 10 million death records from these six Asian ethnicities (which represent 84% of all Asians).
They calculated proportionate mortality ratios (PMR) for CVD, where a PMR greater than 1 meant that CVD accounted for a larger percent of deaths in this ethnic/racial group than in the reference group of non-Hispanic whites.
The PMRs for CVD were highest in Asian Indian men (1.43), Asian Indian women (1.12), and Filipino men (1.15).
Asian Indians had PMRs that were consistently higher than whites at all ages. Filipino men had higher PMRs when they were younger (45 to 65 years); the rates approached those of white men as they got older.
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