What does anxiety have to do with heart disease?

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MASALA has found that psychological symptoms are linked to cardiovascular disease risk.

Among men, those who had higher levels of anxiety and depression had thicker walls of their carotid arteries. In women, higher stress level was linked to thicker carotid walls. Thicker carotid arteries can lead to higher risk of stroke. 

Discrimination, the perception of unfair treatment or harassment as based on one’s race, may also influence the mental health and well-being of MASALA participants. Those who reported experiencing discrimination had higher levels of depressive symptoms, anger, and anxiety.  

Some things that were found to help this anxiety was by actively coping and talking about experiences with others. 

 

What Are South Asian Americans Eating?

Dietary patterns are linked to heart disease risk factors. MASALA participants consume one of three major dietary patterns:

  1. A vegetarian diet with fried snacks, sweets and high-fat dairy foods – this diet was linked with lower levels of HDL (good) cholesterol and more insulin resistance (a cause of diabetes);

  2. A mostly non-vegetarian diet – linked with higher weight, waist size and cholesterol levels;

  3. A mostly vegetarian diet with fruits, vegetables, legumes and nuts was linked with lower blood pressure and metabolic syndrome (large waist circumference, low HDL, high triglycerides, high glucose and high BP).

Read more about this research.

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Indians or Indian Americans — who has higher diabetes rates?

We compared rates of diabetes and prediabetes between U.S. South Asians in MASALA with Indians living in Chennai, India.  We found that diabetes rates are:

  • higher in India (38% in India vs. 24% in MASALA),
  • but that prediabetes rates are higher in the U.S. (33% in MASALA vs. 24% in India).
  • There is a growing burden of diabetes in India.
  • It appears that South Asians in the U.S. have started making some healthy lifestyle changes to reduce their risk of developing diabetes.

We know that walking 30 minutes/day and losing 5-7% of your body weight can help prevent or delay development of diabetes.

MASALA in The Wall Street Journal

MASALA in The Wall Street Journal

Dr. Alka Kanaya is principal investigator for the Masala study, which is looking at why South Asians have relatively high rates of heart disease. ‘If we can figure out what these factors are that really impact heart disease [in South Asians] then we can start targeting interventions specific to lowering those risk factors,’ she says. 

Read about us in the New York Times!

Read about us in the New York Times!

South Asians today account for more than half of the world's cardiac patients. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and rates have risen over the past several decades.