The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health report that Asian Americans have a high prevalence of the following conditions and risk factors: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hepatitis B, HIV/AIDS, smoking, tuberculosis, and liver disease.
Countries in Asia continue to face challenges with controlling the spread of infectious diseases including HIV, malaria, animal-origin influenza, and zoonotic diseases which cross national boundaries. Southeast Asia in particular is susceptible to new diseases and drug resistant strains of malaria.
So you may not think you're at risk (and your doctor may not think you are either!). But as a person of Asian descent, you may have less muscle and more fat than other groups and can develop diabetes at a younger age and lower body weight. That extra body fat tends to be in your belly (visceral fat).
The most common NCDs are cardiovascular diseases (CVD), diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases. With the rapid increase in NCD-related deaths in Asia Pacific countries, NCDs are now the major cause of deaths and disease burden in the region.
Approximately 44 percent of normal-weight South Asians in the study had two or more risk factors for heart disease compared with just 21 percent of normal-weight whites. South Asians develop Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, and high cholesterol at lower body weights than the general population.
What you may not know is that ethnicity also plays a major role. That's right. African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, and some Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans are all at higher risk for type 2 diabetes than Caucasians, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA).
Diabetes is a rapidly growing health challenge among Asians and Pacific Islanders who have immigrated to the United States, affecting about 20 percent of Asian Americans; about 90 to 95 percent of Asians with diabetes have type 2 diabetes.
Nutrition Facts
High in fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, the Asian diet is also low in saturated and total fat. It is this combination that many health professionals believe protects against many chronic diseases, such as heart disease and cancer. The Asian diet is relatively low in meat and dairy foods.
Traditional Asian Definitions of the Causes of Illness
Health is considered to be related to harmony in and between the body, mind, soul and universe. The idea of harmony is most commonly expressed as a balance of “hot” and “cold” elements or states, so that illnesses or states of health may be seen as hot or cold.
Lesotho. Deemed the unhealthiest country in the world, the CDC reports that the leading causes of death in Lesotho include HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular diseases, and diarrheal diseases. Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.
[20] found that in a primary care setting, 41.3% of Asian patients had depressive symptoms, but physicians identified only 23.6% of them as psychiatrically distressed.
After adjustment, the life expectancy for Asians is 84.7 years, reducing the Asian-white gap in life expectancy from 7.8 years down to 6.2 years.
The Asians Dying was written in the 1960's by W.S. Merwin is a protest free verse poem about the Vietnam War, the conflict between countries, death and living in the war.
Meanwhile, African nations like Benin and The Gambia recorded the lowest prevalence of diabetes in the world. In 2021, African countries had a combined total of 23.6 million adults with diabetes, less than 2% of the continent's population.
The prevalence of diabetes is highest among Native Americans (33%) and lowest among Alaska natives (5.5%; Table 1). NHWs and Asian Americans have similar prevalence rates of 7.1% and 8.4%, respectively, where NHBs and Hispanic Americans overall have higher prevalence rates of 11.8% and 12.6%, respectively.
China is the country with the highest number of diabetics worldwide, with around 141 million people suffering from the disease. By the year 2045, it is predicted that China will have around 174 million people with diabetes.
Men are almost twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as women. Having overweight or obesity is considered a primary risk factor for diabetes. However, obesity rates are similar between men and women in the U.S. This suggests that the relationship between sex, weight, and diabetes may be more nuanced.
Family history, and social and environmental factors play a part. But it is still not clear why people from certain ethnic backgrounds have an increased risk. What do we know? People from South Asian backgrounds for example are more likely to experience insulin resistance at a younger age.
Coronary artery disease and heart attack
Black adults are more likely than white adults to die from a heart attack. Asian adults are less likely than other groups to have coronary artery disease. But there are some differences by ethnicity.
Abstract. Living South Asians have low lean tissue mass relative to height, which contributes to their elevated type 2 diabetes susceptibility, particularly when accompanied by obesity. While ongoing lifestyle transitions account for rising obesity, the origins of low lean mass remain unclear.
Vitamin D deficiency is currently epidemic in British South Asians. More than 50% of the population have a severe deficiency according to a study by Dr Andrea Darling, from the University of Surrey, who analysed Vitamin D levels in more than 6000 South Asians in one of the largest studies of its kind.
Many South Asian communities are in areas of deprivation. This can increase risk of developing CHD, for many complex reasons. For example, in deprived areas people are often on lower incomes and may have less access to healthier foods.