RESEARCH REVEALS DISTINCT BLOOD PRESSURE PATTERNS IN SOUTH ASIAN AND EAST ASIAN ADULTS

South Asian and East Asian adults living in the United Kingdom may have distinct trajectories to develop high blood pressure over their life course, according to new research published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal.

Researchers analyzed health records for more than 3,400 adults enrolled in the UK Biobank who self-identified as having South Asian or East Asian ethnicity. Previous research found that individuals with South Asian ancestry living in the United Kingdom had substantially higher risk of heart disease caused by blocked arteries, or atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), compared with individuals with European ancestry, as well as that South Asian adults living in the United States had higher death rates from ASCVD compared with white adults. Here, researchers explored differences in long-term blood pressure patterns and their potential lifetime effects on cardiovascular disease of those differences between South Asian and East Asian adults.

High blood pressure and its management varies widely across racial and ethnic populations, and the frequently used 'Asian' category hides those differences. This is crucial considering that high blood pressure at a young age is a major contributor to premature heart disease risk and given the emerging initiatives to study distinct cardiometabolic profile across different Asian subpopulations."

So Mi Jemma Cho, Ph.D., lead study author, postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

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2025-02-12T11:54:25Z