Plain English Summary

Patients with diabetes have a higher chance of later having heart failure, dementia, heart attacks, or strokes compared with people who don’t have diabetes. The exact reasons for this are unknown. With an ageing population, diabetes is becoming increasingly common. About half of people of South Asian or African Caribbean ethnic origin will have diabetes by 80 years old, as will a fifth of Europeans. Researchers have not yet been able to totally unravel why heart disease risk is particularly high in some ethnicities compared with others. Professor Nish Chaturvedi and colleagues are hoping to find some answers from a population-based study. They have been awarded nearly 2million from BHF over five years to study nearly 2,000 men and women over 65 of South Asian and African Caribbean origin. These individuals were first invited to participate in a health study in 1988. Since then they have been studied to gain information about their disease risk. A group of people of European origin have also been followed over this period for comparison. Now some of these individuals are being recalled by Professor Chaturvedi’s team to identify those that have risk factors or early signs of cognitive decline, diabetes and heart disease. They will analyse the data to try to find any patterns that may increase heart disease risk. These include factors such as gender, as well as ethnicity. The team’s findings will help early diagnosis and treatment of heart disease– especially in patients with diabetes and those of South Asian or African Caribbean origin.